The Big Sandy Mountaineer -

I knew that adding the 8th-grade wrestlers to the high school wrestling program had helped the team this year, but I was curious to know if the statewide changes were as effective.

Head coach Tucker Taylor said, "For our high school, we had two 8th graders. We had Harley Labuda, and Quinn Rodewald, both of them placed at state. In our program alone, quite a few eighth graders were able to be quite successful throughout the wrestling season. I know there was a kid from Hardin that placed in the state championship. And then there was a handful of other eighth graders that placed at state as well. I mean, I think it's good for expanding the sport as well."

He believes that adding the 8th grade was good for the sport. "I think it's really good. And the other thing that it helps with recruiting from basketball. It evens the playing field. The other thing is how fast the girl sport has grown. Now many girls are out for wrestling, and the quality of the wrestling with those girls is getting better and better, and it's definitely catching on. It's fun to see."

There are college offering wrestling scholarships. "Providence has girls wrestling. I know Iowa, the most prominent wrestling school in the country, has a girls' wrestling program. So it's gonna start! Yeah, it's booming. It seems like it keeps doubling every year with the number of girls coming out from wrestling. We will have four or five girls out for wrestling next year. We had two this year and are seeing AA programs like Flathead and Senior grow. They have 20-plus girls coming out for wrestling."

He doesn't think there are any negatives. "Both the eighth graders wrestling and the girls having their own division that the wrestling now, I mean, I think it's only good for the sport, and it's helping you grow and helping keep the numbers improving. Especially in the smaller communities where wrestling was a dying sport. So I mean, this has been something that has helped put some life back into wrestling."

"The little kids wrestling program in Big Sandy, in general, has helped bring our numbers up from a few kids in high school to now we have seven this year, and I think we'll be pushing ten or even a few more. Yeah, for high school wrestling, kind of eighth grade all the way up through the senior year. It will keep growing. I think it has helped the eighth graders and the girls and helped keep wrestling growing instead of shrinking and how it was before that. It has given it a little bit of a push for credibility."

Tucker said it was nice to have Kyle Rodewald as a second coach. "It was absolutely nice having a second coach. Kyle has done a lot for the program, from the little guy level all the way up. These kids start to see friends of theirs wrestling and having success, and then they're willing to try it." Tucker thinks that Big Sandy will have some good quality wrestlers in the future that are ready to compete."