T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM Marshalltown Community School District board members Maria Morales and Karina Hernandez listen to progress of the girls wrestling team during Monday night's meeting. The board approved hiring two additional coaches due to the increasing popularity, and the challenges the district has with sharing coaches.

The increasing interest and popularity of girls wrestling led the Marshalltown Community School Districr board members to hire two extra coaches during the regular Monday meeting.

Director of Athletics and Activities Ryan Isgrig asked the board to hire a head coach for the Marshalltown High School team and another for Miller Middle School. The move would help enhance the relatively new program, he said.

“When we first came here two years ago, we sat in front of you for esports and girls wrestling,” Isgrig said. “We continued to evaluate those programs and I think they have trended in the right direction.”

Some highlights of the program are the increased number of athletes. Isgrig said they had no idea of the turnout they could expect when the program was introduced. Initially, about 25 girls signed up to wrestle. The main question was how many of them would complete the season, much less the first week since many had never wrestled before.

“We were really excited with the number of girls interested,” he said. “As you know, the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union sanctioned girls wrestling two years ago. They don’t wrestle with the boys anymore. They wrestle only the girls.”

Isgrig referenced an article stating girls wrestling is the fastest growing sport in the country.

“We think it’s only going to continue to trend that way,” he said.

The first Marshalltown year ended with 12 high school and three Miller girls completing the season. The second year wrapped up with 20 MHS and 12 Miller girls.

“As you can see, the numbers definitely jumped up,” Isgrig said.

He said the team won eight duals and six high school athletes won individual titles. That alone was a big accomplishment, Isgrig said. The district also had 17 top three finishes at tournaments. Wrestler Genevieve “Gigi” Lantigua also qualified for the state tournament.

“She was our first state qualifier in school history,” he said. “Now we have two student athletes who will compete next year in college at the next level.”

One of the athletes who will participate in college is Meya Roberts, whose arm was hurt during a match with West Marshall.

“We’re really proud of her,” he said. “She had a significant injury during one of our tournaments and her season was kind of short, but I can, with confidence, say if she had been healthy the whole year, she would have been a state qualifier.”

One of the primary challenges Isgrig said they face is a lack of coaches. Coach Lucas Cross oversees both the girls and boys wrestling programs.

“When girls wrestling first came out, we didn’t know what [it] was going to look like,” Isgrig said.

During basketball season, he said the boys and the girls teams are on the same night. There are six games in two gyms. They assumed wrestling would be structured the same way, but now girls have their own tournaments and are competing on different nights. Sometimes the matches fall on the same night, but for the most part, Isgrig said they are separate days and locations.

“I will give you an example,” he said. “On Saturday, we might have boys varsity going over to Dike-New Hartford for a tournament. We might have the boys JV going to Boone, the girls going to Marion. We have three different teams in three different spots.”

With the different days and locations, Isgrig said it has been taxing to do both, so another coach is needed, especially with only one assistant coach. Also, during a match, there might be five or six bouts going on at the same time, but Marshalltown only has one shared coach to be in their corners.

“Having a coach in their corner during a competition will only help our girls out,” he said. “Not having a coach in their corner might set them up for failure. You want those kids to have a coach there to throw an arm around them, win or lose, and be in their corner to support them.”

Miller Wrestling Coach Jeff Tice spoke about the girls wrestling at the middle school after Isgrig. He agreed that sharing coaches takes away from the teams. If the boys have a meet the same night as the girls, one of the coaches has to leave the boys team.

“We are probably heading toward doing a split season,” he said. “Right now, girls pick between girls basketball or wrestling, and it’s not fair to them to make that decision. We’re hoping if girls wrestle after Christmas break, at the same time as boys basketball, it will bring up our basketball numbers and increase our girls wrestling numbers.”

Tice is expecting Miller to have 15 athletes finish next year’s girls wrestling season. However, a sport cannot grow if there is not a coach to recruit and talk to the athletes, he said.

Tice added that there is not enough space at Miller. With basketball and wrestling occurring during the same time, only one gym can be used for basketball. The older gym is used for wrestling, he said. Plus, there are a lot of events at Miller scheduled for the weekends. Staff have to roll up wrestling mats and move them aside so other events, such as volleyball or basketball, can be held.

“Wrestling mats are heavy,” he said. “I’m not getting any younger. The only other issue I see with going to a split season in January is space for the girls to practice. [Luke Cross] thinks we can get something worked out where we can get girls transported to the high school, and they can practice with the high school girls.”

Isgrig said if a program is going to be built correctly, separate coaches are needed for the middle school and high school teams. All present board members voted in favor. Members Leah Stanley and Sara Faltys were absent.

In other business, board members:

Approved May 6 as the date for the public hearing for a $10 million certified budget amendment. There will be no difference in taxes with the amendment, said Director of Business and Operations Randy Denham.

Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.