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Mallory Bruhn, 10 securing her win.

“Iowa has the fastest-growing girls’ wrestling program in the country,” according to Madison Melchert, assistant director of the Iowa High School Athletic Union (IGHSAU). 

This winter sport has more than 2,400 girls participating during the 23-24 season. The state has more than 100 schools hosting a girl’s wrestling team. Some schools around the Muscatine area and MAC conference that are sporting a team include, L&M, Wilton, Wapello, Bettendorf, Central DeWitt, Clinton, Davenport Schools, North Scott, and Pleasant Valley. 

How has this impacted MHS?

The IGHSAU has made girl’s wrestling its 11th sanction sport, which means that wrestling is now an official sport offered to high school girls. When a couple of years ago, girls who wanted to wrestle had to wrestle on the boy’s team. Our school has grown in the amount of girl’s wrestling in the 23-24 season as well. The girl’s team went from a couple of girls on the boy’s team to, three girls on their own team, to a full functional team consisting of 19 girls, with Elsie Lewis as the only returner. 

The girl’s season started on the 30th of October, and has been in full swing ever since – practicing every weekday from 3:40-6:10, unless there is a meet or tournament.  

What to expect at a practice: 

The team starts with a 30- 40 minute warm-up led by Coach Crumly, which consists of sprints, backward and forward rolls, shuffling, karaoke, 5 push-ups, 5 sit-ups, 5 burpees(which is known as 555), all in between jogging around the wrestling room. 

After warm-ups, they begin to go over drills, and then cover new skills or polish skills. Drills include single and double-leg takedowns, escapes, and high-crotch takedowns.  And that’s only the average day. 

Some days consist of two practices, one being at 6-7 am, which is a practice solely focusing on cardio, and another average practice from 3-6.  Then the cycle repeats.

This routine continues until the state qualifying tournament for the girls, which is scheduled on January 26th, with state following on February 1st-2nd. 

Interested in following along with the wrestling season and keeping up with brief highlights and fun pictures? Follow the Muskie Wrestling Boosters on Facebook.