Colfax school board approves girls’ wrestling co-op
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By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — The Colfax Board of Education has approved a girls’ wrestling cooperative with the Bloomer school district.
A few years ago, a boys’ wrestling co-op was established with Bloomer, and the boys and girls who wrestle were on a combined team, said Michael Hodel, athletic director for the Colfax school district at the Colfax Board of Education’s February 14 meeting.
Girls could qualify with the boys for the state tournament, he said.
The Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Association has now added a separate state tournament for girls, so there is a girls-only tournament and a boys-only tournament, Hodel said.
There is only one division for the girls, and competition in the state tournament is on an individual basis since there are not enough girl wrestlers at many schools to form teams, he said.
The WIAA girls’ wrestling tournament will not change how the program operates now with Bloomer, and there will be no additional coaches needed and there will be no special tournaments, Hodel said.
If a girl wrestler goes to state, the girls’ tournament will be on the same day and in the same place as the boys’ tournament, he said.
The girls wrestling co-op would have the same renewal process as the boys’ wrestling co-op of re-approval every two years with an April deadline, Hodel said.
The Bloomer-Colfax wrestling co-op currently has one girl, he noted.
When asked if the girls would still be part of the Bloomer-Colfax co-op wrestling team and would still wrestle with the boys at the state tournament, Hodel said he was not sure and would have to find out how that would work.
The girls would still be able to compete at the smaller tournaments, he said.
According to an article on-line published by Wisconsin Public Radio in May of 2021, the WIAA held the inaugural girls’ state wrestling tournament in January of 2022.
“During the regular season, girls will still be able to wrestle boys in their weight class if there are no female wrestlers on the opposing team who match up. However, the season will culminate with WIAA crowning its first individual girls wrestling champions,” according to the WPR article.
The article notes that only six states officially sanctioned girls’ wrestling before 2018: Hawaii, Texas, Washington, California, Alaska and Tennessee but that at the time the article was written, there were 32 states that officially sanctioned girls’ wrestling.
Girls still will have the ability to represent their schools at the boys’ team tournament, the article states.
Several school board members wondered how many girls wrestled across the state.
Trevor Hovde, principal at Colfax Elementary and whose son, Theo Hovde, is a wrestler, said there were perhaps 50 or 60 girls wrestling at some of the tournaments he had attended.
The Colfax Board of Education unanimously approved the girls’ wrestling cooperative with the Bloomer school district.