There are enough girls who are on high school wrestling teams in Missouri that state officials will examine whether to hold separate seasons and championships.
A wrestling advisory committee made up of eight members (one from each district in the state) could meet in March and pass along recommendations to make girls wrestling a separate sport at the April meeting of the Missouri State High School Activities Association board of directors, said Jason West, communications director for MSHSAA.
“It’s a hot discussion topic. From what I’m understanding, it might happen,” West said on Friday. “I’m not sure if it can happen as quickly as next year. We have surveyed the membership on the different options.”
The question is sure to be discussed by coaches, wrestlers and fans during the state wrestling championships at the Mizzou Arena in Columbia Feb. 15-17. Currently, there are four classifications for wrestling (Class 1-4) in Missouri. The girls compete for the same titles as the boys.
When the advisory committee talks about splitting up the boys and girls, there are many questions that need to be answered: How many classes will there be; how will the weight classes be defined; will they compete during the same season and hold their championships at Mizzou Arena?
Those are just a few examples of what needs to be discussed and approved. West said teams don’t turn in rosters that identify if a wrestler is male or female, and an athlete’s gender is impossible to determine based on their names. After all, who’s to say if Chris or Tracy is a boy or girl? So he’s not sure how many girls are wrestling in Missouri.
“Right now wrestling is considered a co-ed sport,” West said. “We don’t have a male-female breakdown. We’d like to promote the fact that there are girls wrestling.”
Windsor freshman Reilly Baughman, a female, won an 8-7 decision over De Soto’s Grant Hearst at 113 pounds on Feb. 1 in a key Jefferson County Activities Association dual meet. Baughman’s victory was the only one for the Owls in the first six weight classes. The Dragons won two of the last three weight classes to beat the Owls 37-25 and capture their sixth straight conference title.
Baughman said she played football until her parents told her it was too rough. She said they’re fine with her wrestling against boys and she said her teammates have accepted her.
“I wrestled my hardest to win that match,” Baughman said of her win over Hearst.
She said she’s OK with whatever the MSHSAA decides.
“I don’t mind of they split it because we’re still wrestling,” she said. “It would be nice if we could wrestle the boys. That would give us more competition.”
Wrestling isn’t a passing fancy for Baughman, who said she intends on continuing the sport in college.
“(My Windsor teammates) treat me the same, not just like a girl,” Baughman said.
Windsor head coach Kevin Stoffey has been at the school for more than two decades. Stoffey said Baughman is the only girl in the high school program. Other girls have tried out for the team but have all quit. Baughman wrestled for the school’s eighth-grade team last year.
“Right from the first day, I liked her. She’s all business,” Stoffey said. “She never asks for anything special. I treat her like any of the guys. (The Windsor boys) don’t think anything of it. She’s one of their teammates. When she got her win (Feb. 1) they loved it.
“She likes the sport. She likes the competition. MSHSAA is thinking about offering girls competition next year. Not that I want to get rid of her, but if you had (girls wrestling) she’d be right there at the top.”
When Baughman wrestled at a junior varsity meet at Sikeston earlier this season, Stoffey said she threw two boys and despite trailing in a match, she came back and pinned her opponent.
“She doesn’t quit,” Stoffey said.
I was curious how many girls were wrestling in Jefferson County, so I emailed some of the coaches from the JCAA and Suburban West.
Fox head coach Amond Prater said there are two girls on his Warriors squad and he likes the idea of breaking up the genders because it will make the girls more competitive if they wrestle in college, where the men and women compete separately.
“It would almost work better if boys wrestling was a winter sport and girls wrestling was a spring sport to better match the styles,” Prater said. “I have been approached by many girls in my school about wanting to wrestle and the interest has grown every year.”
Northwest head coach Ron Wilhelm said there aren’t any girls on the Lions’ JV or varsity.
“I would be in favor of coaching both,” Wilhelm said. “I have not seen a steady increase (in girls participating in wrestling) but I believe I could get a lot of females out in our school. I see no real obstacles.”
A good example of boys and girls competing in the same sport, but not together, is basketball. For years, the boys and girls state championships were played on the same weekends at the Mizzou Arena. The state tournament for both genders has been moved this year to JQH Arena in Springfield. To accommodate all five classes, Classes 1-3 compete March 9-10, while Classes 4-5 are March 16-17.
If MSHSAA does create a girls state wrestling championship and holds it on the same weekend as the boys meet, the Hearnes Center could possibly host one of them, as it did for the boys before Mizzou Arena was built.
“Do we have two facilities running simultaneously?” West said about a divided state wrestling finals weekend. “Do we divide up the classes? If we’re adding anything more to the finals, venue space will be considered.”