Mar 12, 2025 4 min read

Name: Marlee Solomon

School: Canon-McMillan

Grade: Sophomore

Sport: Wrestling

Solomon’s week: Coming to Pennsylvania from the state of California, Solomon didn’t exactly know what to expect when it came to the girls wrestling scene, but she adapted pretty quickly.

Solomon won the 112-pound state title last week in Hershey with a 14-0 major decision over Conneaut’s Daylee Wilson in the championship match.

It concluded a season in which she went 39-3 and also earned a WPIAL title.

“I didn’t really know what girls wrestling would be like here,” Solomon said. “There was some pretty good competition and I’m just grateful that I was able to do well.”

Solomon was the only girl from the WPIAL to win a state title and is the second girl in the two-year history to do so from Canon-McMillan, joining Valarie Solorio, who’s now wrestling in college at Iowa.

She did so by going 4-0 in the tournament. There was adversity in the semifinals when she took a kick to the stomach by Brashear’s Tamara Humphries in the semifinals, but shook it off and finished off an 11-0 major decision.

In the final against Wilson, she controlled the match from start to finish.

“I think the best thing for me to do in that match was to do the stuff I have worked on for many years,” Solomon said. “I trusted my shot defense, my low singles and all the little details that make a difference in a match over time.”

Choosing a weight: Solomon wrestled at four different weight classes this year, 112, 115, 118 and 124. Some wrestlers will choose a weight in individual tournaments that give them the best path to medal, but Solomon decided she wanted to wrestle at 112 because she felt some of the best competition would be there. The matchups she wanted didn’t come to fruition.

“I weigh about 120 pounds, but I thought it’d be good to cut down because I wanted to wrestle Julia Horger,” Solomon said. “I lost to her at the Fargo finals and I wanted to get a rematch, but she went down a weight. I also wanted to wrestle Journie (Rodriguez), but she didn’t make the finals. I wanted to wrestle against the better girls, but they ended up not being there.”

Championship family: Solomon is the second state champion in her family. Her mother, Daneen, won a state title in California in 1997. They were the same age and wrestled in the exact same weight class when each won their respective title.

Solomon started wrestling in 7th grade in California, where girls wrestling is much more established compared to Pennsylvania.

“My mom really wanted me to do it being a state champion when she was younger so I just wanted to do well and I really found how to love wrestling,” Solomon said.

Change of scenery: The warm weather of Southern California was left behind when Solomon and her family moved across the country to Canonsburg in November. Aside from missing friends the climate is near the top of the list of things she misses about California, but has found plenty of positives about Western Pa.

“I loved the beach,” Solomon said. “I miss going there.

“The houses are really nice here and I love how there’s no traffic. It’d take an hour to get to practice (in California) and it was only like 20 minutes away.”

Cosmetology: One of Solmon’s favorite and fairly new hobbies is to braid hair. She had her hair braided for the state championships.

“I love to braid hair and I go to cosmetology school,” Solomon said. “I learned how to braid pretty recently and I like to do it, because it just makes it a little more fun for me.”

Compiled by Jerin Steele