Ally Conley has the distinction of being the first female state champion in the history of Queen Anne’s County High School on the first-ever all-girls’ wrestling team in the Bayside Conference, while teammate Bree Conard is carrying on a family tradition.

Conley, a 100-pound sophomore, and Conard, a 125-pound freshmen, also embrace the notoriety shared by their coach, David Stricker, and their Lions’ teammates, making them more driven than ever.

Conley, 15, wants to become a repeat Class 2A East Regional and state titlist.

“It’s a lot of pressure returning as a state champion,” said Conley, also a member of the Lions’ varsity cheerleading squad this past fall. “But I just have to work hard and trust my training.”

Conard is the granddaughter of retired former Kent County High coach Dan Zottarelli.

“I really enjoy the sport and I really don’t feel there is a lot of pressure. I have amazing people around me who also love it as much as I do,” said Conard, 15. “We only had three girls wrestle last year, and I wasn’t among them. But now, there are so many of us that fact that has really motivated us as we pull together as a team.”

Conley has a 9-2 record on the year with nine falls comprising a mark of 7-1 against boys and 2-1 against girls.

Most recently Conley used a pair of first-period pins to reach the finals of last weekend’s Who Is Number One Tournament at Northeast High in Anne Arundel County, where she fell, 7-2, to North Harford’s Bryn Cespedes.

Their bout was a rematch of last year’s regional and state finals, which Conley won by scores of 9-4, and 14-2, respectively.

“After losing to Bryn Cespedes I know I have to work harder,” said Conley, who used a third-period, semifinal pin to reach last year’s state final. “I need to be better prepared for the regional and the state tournaments where I will wrestle her again.”

Conley’s career record is 19-11 with 10 pins comprising an 11-1 mark against girls and 8-10 opposite boys.

“It’s amazing and humbling being a pioneer and being the first for so many things,” said Conley, who wrestled for two years before high school with UQA Lions Youth Wrestling.

“It is hard being a girl in such a boy-dominated sport, but the more we wrestle, the more people love to watch girls wrestling.”

A crowd of 350 packed the Queen Anne’s High gym as the Lions lost an all-girls’ dual by a nail-biter, 42-36, earlier this year to Winters Mill of Carroll County, a program whose squad has swelled to 30 members under coach John Lowe.

“This has been an exciting season so far, and to achieve what Ally has achieved is the ultimate goal,” Conard said. “I try to wrestle everybody in the room because everybody wrestles differently.”

The Lions return to action on January 21 at Walter Johnson of Montgomery County before playing host on January 28 to their program’s inaugural all-girls Queen Of The Jungle Tournament.

“Women’s wrestling is the fastest growing sport in America,” said Stricker, whose Lions face Patterson Mill of Harford County on February 7.

“There is a place for every young girl on the wrestling mat. The more we can spotlight women’s wrestling and give them opportunities to wrestle, the faster we erase all the stigmas about girls wrestling.”

Girls have clamored to the mats since the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association held its inaugural all-girls state wrestling tournament at Northeast High in February 2018.

Montgomery County freshman Helen Maroulis made an impact in March 2006 when she became the first girl to place at the Maryland wrestling championships, finishing sixth at 112 pounds in the 4A/3A states.

In 2007, Arundel High senior Nicole Woody (103) made more history by becoming Maryland’s first girl to win a county and regional title and to finish as a Class 4A-3A state runner-up.

Woody pinned South River’s Curtis Taylor in five minutes, 42 seconds for the Anne Arundel County title and blanked Centennial’s Jack Western 2-0 in the finals of the Class 4A-3A regionals on a reversal with 1:01 left in the third period.

Woody lost her state title bout 6-2 to River Hill’s Scott Mantua, who had finished third behind her at regions after losing to Western in the regional semifinals.

Woody won her state semifinal 5-4 in overtime against Tuscarora’s C.J. Savage, having already become the first girl to qualify for the 4A-3A meet as a sophomore, and the first to pin a boy at a state meet as a junior.

As a Magruder junior in 2009, Maroulis became the first female to reach the finals of both the Montgomery County and Class 4A-3A East Region tournaments and repeated her sixth-place finish at states.

Maroulis later became the first-ever American female to win a gold medal at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in August 2016, and world championship titles in 2015 and 2017.

Maroulis also won a gold medal in the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, and, most recently, a bronze medal in the Tokyo Summer Olympics and a gold medal in the January, 2022 Ivan Yariguin Grand Prix in Krasnoyarsk, Russia.

Former Kent County High School coach, Dan Zottarelli, has “been fortunate to be part of the media team as the head photo marshal for USA Wrestling for the last five Olympic trials,” he said.

“I was also fortunate to be at the 2016 Olympic Trials at the University of Iowa when Helen Maroulis won her spot on the USA Olympic Team. Then Helen won the Olympic Gold medal in Rio the same year defeating wrestling legend Saori Yoshida. In 2012, I was the photo marshal for the 2021 Olympic team Trials in Fort Worth, Texas,” said Dan Zottarelli, 76, who coached wrestling at Kent County High School for 30 years.

“This another great tournament for Helen as she once again won her spot on her second consecutive Olympic then a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. I believe that women’s wrestling has become the fastest growing sport for women in the USA. I also feel that the growth of women wrestling is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Zottarelli has witnessed the growth of the Lions’ program under Stricker.

“Last year, they had just three young ladies on the team, and this year, they started the season with 16 women,” Zottarelli said. “I think the secret of coach Stricker’s success is that he has a special skill of welcoming women and men into his wrestling program. He has a very positive coaching style.”

Conley is joined by junior captains Delaney Gray (130) and Julia Reburn (135). Gray placed second at regions last year, and Reburn is 8-1 on the year.

Other first-year wrestlers are freshmen Conard, Kalli Stubbs (105), Linda Vail (140) and Addie Dickens (155), sophomores Ava Price (120), Keira Corcoran (145) and Kaylynn Bryant (170), and seniors Erin Reynolds (115), Abby Altamirano (155) and Kei Rickard (190). Conard has a record of 7-2, Price is 6-4, and Bryant, 5-4.

Conard happens to be Zottarelli’s granddaughter, having joined the Lions’ grapplers a day after ending her season as a member of the regional championship girls’ soccer team.

“Bree came home after school the day after their season ended and said to Wendy, ‘Tonight, the wrestling team is having an open mat…can I go?’” Zottarelli recalled. “Wendy tried to restrain herself from doing the ‘Happy Dance’ because Wendy always wished she could wrestle in high school. So Wendy said, ‘sure, Bree you can go -- I will drive you.’”

Wendy Zottarelli is certainly glad that Bree did.

“Wrestling was a way that my Dad and I bonded because my Dad coached for 40 years, and I’m 49,” Wendy Zottarelli said.

“So I practically grew up around the sport from the time my father created the Kent junior league program. I was not able to wrestle at the time, so it’s really cool how it’s come full circle and I get to now watch my daughter compete in the sport that I love so much.”