- March 26, 2025
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Francesca Bisordi will become the first girls wrestler at Lakewood Ranch High School to compete in the state championships on March 6 at Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee.
That’s an impressive accomplishment, but it’s worth noting that it wasn’t even possible just five years ago.
The Florida High School Athletic Association sanctioned the sport ahead of the 2021-22 season, but before that, girls had to join boys teams and typically compete against boys at tournaments.
They also couldn't participate in postseason tournaments recognized by the FHSAA.
Now, girls who want to wrestle have legitimate teams where they can find a community and have the chance to place their names in the FHSAA record books.
Several other states have also sanctioned the sport, and it’s become the fastest-growing high school sport in the nation, according to a report by the Associated Press.
That increased access has opened doors for countless athletes, and it has been especially monumental for Bisordi.
Self-described as someone who was awkward and didn’t know where she fit in, Bisordi credits wrestling with changing her life.
“I found my thing,” she said. “I’ve been looking for one specific thing that I fit into my whole life, and I found wrestling, and I’m so in love with it. It’s something that I can keep getting better at and I can prove to people I can. I like that I’m always doing something, I have a community, and I like fighting. It’s fun.”
Bisordi, a sophomore, grew up watching her older brother, Thomas Bisordi, wrestle for the Mustangs. She said she wasn’t particularly interested in it at the time.
She tried softball when she was younger, but didn’t enjoy it. At Lakewood Ranch, she first tried girls weightlifting and liked it, but it didn’t scratch her competitive itch.
At the urging of her brother, Bisordi finally decided to give wrestling a shot last spring as a member of the inaugural girls wrestling team at Lakewood Ranch High.
It didn’t come naturally.
“I joined right before the first preseason tournament and I went in there knowing nothing,” Bisordi said. “I got pinned right away, and it was horrible, but I still kept coming back.”
Bisordi had never wrestled before and it showed. She went 3-20 last season.
Despite all those losses, she was hooked.
Bisordi practiced relentlessly, studied the moves of collegiate wrestlers and found her favorite move, the barbed wire — a move in which Bisordi crosses an opponent’s arms over their upper torso.
Thanks to that hard work, this season has been a different story for Bisordi.
She currently holds a 27-4 record in the 170-pound weight class and is coming off a second-place finish at the 1A Region 3 meet Feb. 22. That performance allowed her to advance to the 1A state championships.
“When I first met her she would barely make eye contact with me,” Lakewood Ranch girls wrestling coach Nate Lancaster said. “She was the shy kid. Now she’s outgoing and loud.”
Bisordi has also found close friends through wrestling who have made it easier for her to devote so much of her time to the sport.
Lakewood Ranch’s girls wrestling program is in its second year and has just seven wrestlers on the team, but that's led to a tight-knit community.
That mentality expands beyond just one high school team, too.
“The girls on the team are my best, best friends,” Bisordi said. “I literally made my best friends from wrestling, and at tournaments, all the other girls are really nice. We always make friends at tournaments. Even if we wrestle (against) them, we’re friends. There’s no hard feelings.”
Though Bisordi has already made school history by becoming the first girls wrestler to make it to the state championships, she said she's not satisfied.
If she can finish in the top eight of her 16-person weight class at the 1A state championships, she will medal and get her name on the wall of the wrestling room — known to all future Mustangs girls wrestlers as the first to do so.
Bisordi said she also wants to cut down her weight to the 155-pound or 145-pound weight class for next year, which will allow her to be more fit.
She hopes that further dedication one day leads to a state championship.
When high school is over, she said she hopes to continue wrestling at the next level. That’s something that never would have been an option if the sport hadn’t become sanctioned.
“Last year I didn’t think I would get that good, but I just kept training and I was like, ‘Wait, I can actually wrestle in college,’” Bisordi said. “It seems so fun, seeing other people on teams. Every year there are more colleges adding women’s wrestling, and it’s something I want to do.”
