Being the first official member of a team holds a significant place in that program’s history. The Ithaca College women’s wrestling team will enter its inaugural season during the 2025-26 academic year. In leading up to the season, the team is coming together because its first athletes have committed to the college.

Led by head coach Ryan Ciotoli ’02, expectations of long-term success roam the halls of the Hill Center. Ciotoli said his connection to the program as a former athlete and a coach have drawn interest from prospective students.

“I think a lot of the recruits understand that the men’s program has been really successful,” Ciotoli said. “I’m a product of that, so they kind of see what we’re setting up, and they know there’s going to be success there.”

With high school teams currently competing in championship season, Ciotoli said more of the athlete’s decisions to commit to the college will be made in the coming weeks. He said that by working to recruit current high school juniors, the college’s coaches will have an extra year to confidently build relationships with future athletes.

“We’ve really started working on the sophomore and junior class, starting to build for the other years as well,” Ciotoli said.

Building trust from scratch within a program presents a challenge that Ciotoli is willing to tackle. He said he wants to have a staff who the athletes and himself can rely on in order to reach the level of competition that the men’s program has achieved.

“There’s a lot of aspects of building a team,” Ciotoli said. “I brought on [assistant coach Kate Zavuholnik] who’s going to be the full time assistant when that’s available. Right now we have a lot of good support through helping [to] recruit and also [support] on the men’s side.”

Ciotoli said there are 22 prospective student-athletes who have been accepted by the college and much of the recruitment efforts have focused within New York state.

As of March 2, the team has two official commits who are both from in-state. Sophia Torian is from Shaker High School in Latham, New York, and Delaney Bisaillon is from Mechanicville  High School in Mechanicville, New York. The duo marks the beginning of an era for the college’s athletics department, adding its 14th women’s varsity sport into commission.

Torian and Bisaillon bring prominent records to South Hill, making waves at their respective high schools. Torian, who began wrestling her junior year, has tallied a 37-13 career record with 18 pins and 194 total points scored. Bisaillon, who started her sophomore year, boasts a 70-16 record with 27 pins and 280 points scored.

Bisaillon, an incoming occupational therapy major, said she will not take the opportunity for granted to work with her future teammates to build the foundation of a championship-contending team.

“I’m really excited to see how it grows,” Bisaillon said. “Being the [first] couple of girls starting up the team, it’s an honor. I’m excited to see how far it goes.”

Bisaillon said her high school team has grown exponentially since her first season, where the ratio of boys to girls was 26 to five. After a small jump to her junior season, where she said the team saw just under 10 girls compete, up to 20 girls signed up to compete this year.

She said that watching the increasing number of girls on her team correlate with the sport’s increasing popularity nationally has created a more welcoming environment for women in wrestling.

“It’s incredible, and [at] every single tournament, I meet a new person,” Bisaillon said. “It’s such a happy environment, and we’re so supportive of each other. It’s really fun to watch and see it all develop.”

The NCAA announced Jan. 17 that women’s wrestling will be certified as a championship sport beginning in 2026. While many college programs already have women’s wrestling teams, now they have the opportunity to compete on the biggest stage in Spring 2026.

According to the NCAA, there were 76 women’s wrestling programs at NCAA schools during the 2023-24 academic year, with another 17 programs projected to be added in 2025. Additionally, more than 1,200 women are wrestling at NCAA schools today.

Torian was the first official member of the program. She said she plans to take full advantage of her decision because these opportunities were not available to girls and women in wrestling when she was in middle school.

“It’s an incredible honor,” Torian said. “To be able to be a part of something so amazing, it feels great because the sport [is] only going to keep growing. It’s going to bring a lot more opportunities to women my age and younger.”

During her first year of high school, Torian said she had to wrestle at the club level with boys because girls’ wrestling was not an official team sport in the state. By her sophomore year, girls’ wrestling was sanctioned by the state, allowing for her to compete against other girls.

She said that despite her brother going to Ithaca College, it was not on her initial radar as it did not have a women’s wrestling program at the time, a key part of her college search. Once the announcement was made July 29 that the college was adding it to the long list of women’s varsity sports, Torian jumped on the opportunity.

“It was really funny because we said Ithaca would be perfect if they had wrestling,” Torian said. “I was also really interested in their business program, which is really successful. To be able to commit to a school with great athletics programming and a great education program was the thing that really sold me to Ithaca.”

Jimmy Sutton, La Salle Institute boys’ wrestling head coach and Torian’s coach her sophomore year, said it is difficult to recruit high school girls to colleges with unestablished or launching programs. He said there is not much communication about wrestling recruitment from colleges to high schools.

“The majority of my conversations are definitely me finding a coach and trying to link them up with someone that I think is a fit for their program,” Sutton said.

Ciotoli said the increased participation of girls and women in boys’ and men’s wrestling programs has added to the sport’s growing popularity. He said he believes that the championship level for the NCAA will only benefit the sport more, looking at the women’s U.S. World Wrestling team as an example.

“They never really saw college as an option because it wasn’t sanctioned by the NCAA,” Ciotoli said. “I think it’s just going to draw more girls to more programs in general.”