Skylar Hopstetter and Naomi Gearheart never asked for it, but their talent has given them no choice.
In a sport that’s growing rapidly across the country, the two girls wrestlers have officially made themselves the Ashland area’s most talented trailblazers.
The OHSAA will host its fourth sanctioned girls wrestling state championships Friday through Sunday at Ohio State’s Schottenstein Center. Hopstetter, a Mapleton senior, and Gearheart, a Crestview junior, are both headed back to Columbus for the third time.
Already the area’s first state placer, Gearheart has her sights set on one of just 14 weight-class state titles available in the sport.
Hopstetter, meanwhile, became the first local girl to win 100 career matches earlier this season. She’s got plans for the state podium as well.
Just don’t ask either one of them to brag about it. The soft-spoken stars wholeheartedly prefer to let their talent do the talking.
“I never really knew until last year toward the end of the season how many people were looking at me; I was just kinda doing my thing,” said Gearheart, who placed fifth at state as a freshman and third last March. “But I’d have random people come up to me and tell me, ‘Good job’ or ‘Good luck,’ and I’d be like, ‘I don’t know you, but thank you!’”
“(Being a trailblazer for the sport) is really special to me,” Hopstetter said. “We have a couple of bitty girl wrestlers who come in here and know my name and I think that part is special.
“Those little girls, who are still wrestling boys right now, they’ll eventually have their own (all-girls) tournaments.”
A few years ago, Mapleton became the first area school to have a group of girls wrestlers big enough to go to events and place as a team.
This season, both Ashland and Loudonville followed with their own official varsity girls wrestling squads.
In the not-so-distant future, it will be looked at as less of a start-up varsity sport and more of a high school sports staple.
And when folks look back on the origins of it all in the Ashland area, Gearheart and Hopstetter will be the ones who jump off the page.
Hopstetter a model of consistency
Mapleton already had a storied history in wrestling.
Featuring more boys state champions than any other local school (seven) — not to mention a variety of runner-up finishes — the Mounties have been no stranger to the mats in Columbus.
Hopstetter has added a new twist to the school’s wrestling tale.
The senior 135-pounder has won at least 35 matches in each of the last three seasons, and she’s done it in a sport that wasn’t on her radar until seventh grade.
When she picked it up, she did so alongside Taren Kramer, another Mountie who qualified to state twice before graduating in 2025.
The two wrestled with the boys before reaching high school, where girls head coach Carly Sue Stevens and assistant coach Derek Durbin have been guiding the program.
“Taren became kind of an older sister to me,” Hopstetter said. “I was a quiet middle-schooler and she’s always been outgoing. She definitely got me out of my shell.
“Having another girl there with me definitely kept my interest in coming back. And I don’t mind working hard and I knew wrestling was a sport that would push me to be my best.”
She said her approach has always been to enter each match respecting her opponents equally — to go into it with confidence, but not overconfidence.
It’s a mindset that has served her well.
Stevens, who also coached her as a four-year defender and varsity letter winner in soccer, said she hasn’t been surprised to see her successes translate to the mat.
“She always did what I needed her to do,” Stevens said. “She always exceeded my expectations.”
“She is extremely coachable,” Durbin added. “She listens and makes her adjustments and she can adapt to different styles. That’s probably her best trait.”
Hopstetter said she spends lots of time talking about her matches with her mom, Katie Hopstetter, crediting her for the loads of time she has devoted to watching her daughter turn into one of the state’s best.
She said hitting the 100-win milestone in early December at Avon Lake has been the highlight of her career to this point. She’s also won 13 tournaments over her four high school seasons and is 36-4 this winter.
Hopstetter will walk into the Schottenstein Center with 134 career victories — the fifth-most reported to the OHSAA in girls wrestling thus far. But none of them have come in Columbus.
She said she kind of “blanked out” when she competed at state the first time. Now she’ll go fully expecting to become a state placer.
“Freshman year when I did start wrestling girls, I did have the dream of going to state,” Hopstetter said, “but I didn’t think I’d be going three times.”
“At the end of the day, it’s come down to all of her hard work and all of her dedication,” Stevens said, “and we’re just happy we can help support her in that way.
“I don’t know of a kid who’s more deserving of a podium spot than Skylar.”
Gearheart among Ohio’s most feared
Still just a junior, there’s not an award Gearheart hasn’t taken home during her wrestling career.
She’s already got more than 20 tournament titles in her high school career, and the spoils from those have included everything from medals, trophies, plaques and ribbons to championship belts, a few hammers and even a wooden axe.
Apparently, becoming the first overwhelmingly dominant girls wrestler in an entire multi-county area has its perks.
“She’s the queen of the area as far as setting the tone and the credentials; she’s been on the state podium twice,” said Gearheart’s coach at Crestview, Steve Haverdill. “She just wants to go about her business.”
The 145-pound star cleared 100 career wins just before the postseason, then rolled through the sectional and district tournaments with seven first-period pins.
Gearheart is 108-13 in high school. She’s already got 94 career pins — a Top 7 total in Ohio’s short girls wrestling history — and she’s currently riding a career-best streak of 20 pins in a row.
According to the OHSAA’s record books, no other girl had ever posted a streak of more than 14 straight before this season.
Gearheart first took a liking to the sport in first grade while watching her older brother, former Cougar Levi Kibler, excel.
“I would always go to his wrestling meets and at first I was bored,” she said. “But eventually I was bored to the point where I thought, ‘Why can’t I just do this?’
“When I saw my brother get his hand raised, I remember thinking, ‘That’s really cool. I could do that.’”
By the time she was in middle school, she was wrestling well against boys. The only time she faced girls came in the Ohio Athletic Committee state tournament, where she claimed an Ohio championship and a runner-up finish.
When she arrived at Crestview High School, she was working with Haverdill and Nate Godsey — both now former Cougar boys wrestling head coaches.
Gearheart went 31-5 with 27 pins against girls as a freshman, placing fifth at 155 in Columbus.
Then last year, despite having knee surgery in the offseason, she upped her totals to 34-5 with 29 pins and a third-place state medal at 145.
“Up until this year I’ve been a negative person, where I didn’t believe I was good enough,” Gearheart said. “But after last year, where I came close to (a state title), it was like, ‘Maybe it is possible.’
“Haverdill has helped me gain respect for myself and realize that I’m capable of a lot more than I give myself credit for.”
Haverdill built up the schedule this year to push Gearheart’s limits as much as possible.
She placed third at the Women of Ironman Tournament — one of the toughest events in America — where her lone loss came to a girl from Oklahoma who is ranked 10th in the nation.
Gearheart also was second at an Olentangy Orange tournament, where her loss was against an opponent she might face Sunday for state gold, Greeneview’s No. 1-ranked Lily Hendricks.
“We don’t talk about brackets, we don’t talk about our opponents — there’s nothing you can control with that,” Haverdill said. “You just step on the line and wrestle and do your thing.
“When she’s focused and wrestles to her ability, she can beat anybody. I joke around and say this is the easiest gig I’ve ever had in my life. I just sit there and I clap for her.”
Haverdill said college interest in Gearheart picked up early this season, but the Crestview junior still has the biggest moments of her high school career in front of her.
She’ll hit the mats in Columbus with a 43-3 record and 38 pins this season alone.
“The last two years I’ve treated state as ‘The State Tournament,’” she said. “This year I’m looking forward to treating it like a regular tournament.
“Obviously, it’s bigger, but it’s not like I’m competing against the whole weight class at once — it’s one match at a time.”