A banner first year of girls’ wrestling in Montana and the Flathead Valley

Flathead assistant wrestling coach Sully Sullivan has a saying.

“When you’re here, you’re not just a girl. You’re a wrestler.”

The philosophy is that everyone is on equal ground once they step into the wrestling room and get on the mat.

That will never be more true than Friday, the first day of the first-ever state girls’ wrestling tournament in Montana, the finale of the sport’s historic inaugural season.

Something to the tune of 187 wrestlers will converge on Lockwood High School outside Billings for two days, all the while making history as the first girls’ champions to be crowned.

A sixth of those wrestlers will be from the Flathead Valley. Between Glacier and Flathead High Schools, that makes approximately 32 athletes heading to Lockwood.

It’s the culmination of months, and in some cases years, of hard work. When the Montana High School Association announced last year that girls’ wrestling would be on the slate for winter sports, things kicked into high gear for both schools.

“Well, it’s kind of a massive undertaking,” Glacier wrestling coach Ross Dankers said. “Because we knew we wanted to do it the right way. We wanted to put all our full energy into it and make sure we started right from the beginning.”

And turnout was good — there were around 20 girls who showed up for the first practice. Some brought a friend.

For Flathead assistant Amber Downing, it was a chance to give these athletes something she didn’t have growing up — a program just for them.

“It was pretty exciting to have the opportunity to put it together,” Downing said of the program. “Last year, we saw great success in interest with the girls, as they found out that there was a female coach on staff.”

Dankers said he and his team started doing research on successful girls’ wrestling programs across the country and got his coaching staff up to speed with how he wanted things to look.

Then it was just a matter of teaching the new wrestlers, well, almost everything they needed to know about the sport.

But the girls were game.

Aside from freshman Brady Boll, no one else had any wrestling experience. Junior Delanie Schultz said it took about a month for her to learn most of the terminology.

She’s hooked, though. Schultz said she wants to wrestle “as long as I can.”

“They have just a great mindset towards it, they just love the sport and they’ve embraced every part of it,” Dankers said. “It’s a lot of fun to watch them. They bring a lot of intensity, and they’re kind of fearless and the fact that they’re not afraid to make mistakes, because they’re not protecting an ego.”

Flathead’s girls are considered contenders for a state title, and with good reason – they’re 5-0 in duals this season. The boys’ program has won six state titles, including back-to-back wins in 2017 and 2018. They finished second last year and are expected to be among contenders again this year.

“It’s taken off like a forest fire,” Flathead head wrestling coach Jeff Thompson said. “It’s just insane how immediate popularity has happened with this.”

“Twenty years ago when I started coaching here at Flathead, if you would’ve told me that we would have a girls’ state tournament and the first year would be a lot of 32-girl brackets, I would’ve said no way.”

There’s something unique about wrestling. It seems to bring people together in different ways than other sports. One thing you’ll hear from athletes from either school is the word “family.”

The people make it great, said Flathead senior Hannah Greene.

“I’ve never felt more love from the coaches and the girls in any other activity,” Greene said. “It feels like I’m supported and appreciated and loved by everybody in that room.”

That camaraderie translates to competition, too.

Flathead sophomore Emma Gambino said she’ll get texts from her opponents after matches, something she didn’t experience while wrestling boys last year.

“The guys would be embarrassed that they had to wrestle a girl and things like that,” she said. “And this year, it’s so cool. ‘Cause you help each other up and you’re like, ‘good job’.”

Parents have also gotten into the hype.

Last year, Gambino said her parents weren’t so sure about it when she said she wanted to try wrestling. It took one practice.

“I came home and was like, ‘I think I love this’,” she said. “And my dad, he was so into it. He bought all the clothes and wore his Flathead wrestling shirt everywhere.

“I’m actually so grateful that he’s so involved with it. I think if he didn’t help me out that much, I don’t think I would have done it.”

It’s tough to learn how to wrestle. And Flathead’s program might be more rigorous than most.

“What people miss is that total body workout. When you’re on the mat, you’re using every muscle in your body all the time, including your brain,” Sullivan said.

Some people aren’t prepared for that – but Sullivan adds that Flathead hasn’t had anyone drop out of the girls program. Four girls out of the 21 were lost to injury, but so far everyone has stuck with it.

“We’ve set goals for the team and for each girl set individual goals, and encouraged them to set realistic goals for themselves,” Sullivan added.

There are only a small number of Class AA schools that have girls wrestling teams, so finding matches has been a challenge. Flathead and Glacier have wrestled each other quite a bit, so the state tournament will open up a whole new world for both teams.

The tournament is all-class and wrestlers will compete with upper or lower classes. Things will be run much like the boys’ tourney, except there’s no limit on how many athletes each team can bring. Scores from the top two wrestlers on each team will count toward the team score.

The MHSA added two weight classes in advance of the state tournament.

“It’ll be nice for us because we do have that depth where we have a lot of weight classes where we have at minimum two girls in that weight class,” Downing said.

Glacier is coming off a two-week quarantine, which threw a wrench into preparation for state. Dankers lamented that the girls probably wouldn’t have time to learn a couple of techniques that he wanted to get to because of that, but he’s happy they are cleared in time to compete.

“We just feel really grateful to be able to get out on the mat and let our girls showcase what they’ve done,” he said.

Dowling, along with Sullivan and Thompson will be accompanying the Flathead girls to Lockwood this weekend. It’s a huge milestone for the sport of wrestling in Montana.

“I absolutely love getting an opportunity to have that relationship and grow the sport,” Downing said. “It’s something that I didn’t have at that age and to see them find success and the camaraderie, and to see how these gentlemen have also supported them, it’s pretty amazing.”