This one’s for the girls

The satisfaction in winning and the heartache that follows defeat are likely about the same as the boys experience, but this wrestling meet Monday night was all for the girls.

Nodaway Valley High School hosted 11 girls wrestling teams in one of the first sanctioned girls wrestling meets in the Iowa High School Athletic Union’s storied history of celebrating the Iowa Girl.

The IGHSAU announced at the close of last year’s girls state tournament, which was hosted by the Iowa Wrestling Coaches Association, that they would sanction girls wrestling for the first time beginning in the 2022-23 season. Girls now have their own sport and no longer wrestle boys.

The SWAT Valkyries are a new cooperative, drawing girls from Nodaway Valley, Southwest Valley, CAM, Atlantic and Griswold who fill out a roster of 19 at the high school level. Nodaway Valley sophomore Jazz Christensen won the first match in the program’s history, a pin in 1:48. In history, a Valkyrie is a female warrior.

Wrestling occured at the junior high level in the auxiliary gym at Nodaway Valley, high school competed on two mats in the main competition gym. Many representatives of the Nodaway Valley/O-M boys wrestling program were present helping.

SWAT head coach Tiffany South said she’s hoping fans from all five schools that make up the cooperative will take the time to get to know all of the wrestlers from each of the schools, not just the ones from their own school.

Southwest Valley’s Ady Lundquist is on the team after finishing third and second in the last couple of state tournaments, respectively.

“I think it’s a big step in girls wrestling,” she said. “Watching all the matches, you can tell a lot of girls don’t have a lot of experience, but it’s also the first one of the year. Watching our girls now compared to the end of the year, that’s going to change drastically. Most of the matches we’re losing, they just can’t finish in situations they’re not used to.”

Christensen, Lundquist and Nodaway Valley’s Grace Britten were three of five Valkyries who were champions of their divisions in high school action. Other champs were Haley Armstrong of Atlantic and Evy Marlin of Southwest Valley. Several others won at the middle school level.

To wrestle in a sanctioned girls meet on her home mats, in front of her home crowd, was a dream come true for Britten.

“This is something I’ve been waiting for since the beginning of my career. I’ve helped with the (Nodaway Valley home tournament) Coach Riley Tournament for the last few years now, but this one’s for me and my team,” Britten said. “Like Ady said, this is a big step for us.”

South explained she wants the team’s focus to be on teamwork and sportsmanship.

“When we’re bringing five schools together it’s tough to bring that team connection in. We’ve done a lot of things to work together. If you don’t have a team it’s hard to build a program,” the coach said. “Our team’s about half and half between who has wrestled and who has no experience. Our more experienced girls have been working really hard to bring those non-experienced girls up to speed quickly, and it has been awesome.”

SWAT wrestles in a tournament at Ridge View on Saturday, Nov. 19.