(Photo courtesy of Ryan Corn)
In so many ways, the feeling of girls wrestling matches officially counting for a sanctioned high school season feels like a long time coming.
For years, girls have been advancing to the state wrestling tournament, now officially regarded as the boys state wrestling tournament, and done their best to fit in with the other competitors. Some have wrestled and lost. Others have won via forfeit after their opponents made a personal choice to not compete against a girl.
Brooke Sauer was the first girl to ever step foot on mat at Ball Arena (the former Pepsi Center). Lauryn Bruggink was the first girls to win a match, pinning her opponent in the first round of the consolation bracket. In 2019, a pair of girls placed for the first time as Jaslynn Gallegos took fifth while Angel Rios finished fourth.
In 2021, the girls are officially on their own. Among the many competitors set to make history this season, Olathe’s Nicole Koch is among them.
“It’s great,” Koch said. “In the past, [girls wrestling] has been something that’s just been on the side. It hasn’t been paid attention to as much. With it being sanctioned this year, it’ll get a lot more attention and it will be a lot more fun.”
The sanctioning of the sport continues to demonstrate the growth in participation in both wrestling as a whole and high school sports in general. As the number of female participants in the sport has gone up, the need for girls wrestling as a recognized sport has also increased.
“It’s opening up a huge amount of opportunities for more participation,” Olathe coach Ryan Corn said. “It’s a sport that a lot of people out there were kind of like me, they didn’t want the girls to wrestle with the boys. There were a lot of personal preferences in there. But now that we have the girls competing against each other, there has been a lot more interest in terms of more girls wanting to participate and get into the sport.”
Corn was happy to jump at the chance to coach the girls for what is set to be a historic year for high school sports. It helps that he has a team in Olathe that was ranked No. 8 in the preseason top 10 and he has a competitor like Koch who is ranked at the top of the 118-pound weight class.
In her sophomore year, Koch went a total of 13-0, which included an 8-0 against boys throughout the year.
Heading into her junior season with a fresh, exciting situation ahead, she’s hopeful that success continues to come her way in 2021.
“I wasn’t really ranked last year, so it doesn’t make a difference to me,” she said. “I’m going to wrestle how I normally wrestle, no matter how I’m ranked.”
She continued.
“I’ve wrestled at the [girls pilot] state tournament the last two years and I’ve had a lot of people talk to me since then. I think I’ll be more well-known this year,” she said.
And she’ll be just one of many more Colorado high school athletes with a higher profile. With a new sport comes new opportunities for the student-athletes of the state.
And if the response of girls wrestling is ay indication, kids are jumping at the chance to be involved.