The biggest news in Montana wrestling this year was the Montana High School Association’s decision in January to add girl’s wrestling as a sanctioned sport.
In other states girls wrestling is the fastest growing sport and with Montana’s history of girls wrestling against the boys for several years I think it will start with a bang and grow fast. Several colleges have added female wrestling and more will follow as the sport gets more popular.
Starting with the next school year, girls will continue to travel and wrestle with both boys and girls in their weight class, as they’ve been doing. But at the State tournament girls will wrestle only girls in an all-division event for seven weight classes.
As girls’ participation grows, the sport more than likely will be separated into multiple divisions, as the boys are now. Female wrestlers must wear specially designed uniforms or male uniforms with legal t-shirts. They must be weighed in by an adult female.
High school wrestling in Montana goes back more than six decades. The MHSA sanctioned one class of wrestling in 1956. It expanded to two classes in 1958, and then to three – AA, A, and B-C – which continues to the present.
Originally the three classes held separate state tournaments. In 1988, the MHSA and member schools tried an all-class meet, the first held at the Metra Park in Billings. Twelve mats were put down on the floor, four for AA, four for A and four for B-C. The all-class meet has been held at the Metra every year since except for in 2010, the year the roof was blown off the Metra building in a rare storm.
Class B, in which Jefferson High competes, started with 12 weight classes in 1965. It changed to 14 in 1988, to 15 in 2004, and back down to 13 in 2015.
Over the years, 57 Panther wrestlers have been recognized as All-State, placing in the top six at the state tournament. Eighteen of those have placed in the top three. Steve Rogne was the first and only Jefferson wrestler to go a season undefeated, in 1986.
Other Panther wrestlers that have placed in the top three at State include: Shannon Wortman 1987, Kris Mayes in 1992, Mike Mazurek and Ben Shupe in 1996, Tizer DeMers in 1997 and 1998, Luke Nyland, Marty Kuntzweiler, and Justin Jones in 1998, Jesse Matson in 1999 and 2001, Jim Auer in 2000, Aaron Horner in 2001, Bo Bolstad in 2004, Tom Clement in 2005, Cody George and Will McLaughlin in 2008, Nate Burnett in 2018, and Leo Anderson in 2020. Troy Humphrey has been the head wrestling coach at JHS for 15 years.
Anderson is the youngest to make All-State, doing so in 2019 as a freshman. He is on pace to make All-State all four years. With an 82-17 record over two years, his future looks very bright.
The 2019- 2020 wrestling team also included Matt Riehl, who went 35-14 for the season; Cody St Clare, 34-15; John Armstrong, 34-22; Dakota Dorn, 32-14; Eli Reed, 30-20; Braeden Jones, 29-20; Christian Davis, 26-20; Dominick Davis, 23-16; Kaden Johnson, 18-9; Jace Oxarart, 15-17; Miles Dodge, 14-22; Jeyden Sullivan, 14-24; Tallon DeMers, 13-8; Cole Jeske, 6-9; Gracie Olds, 5-18; Clara Lufkin, 6-14; Briana Garcia, 6-15; Joe Richl, 2-18; Joe Campagna, 0-1; and Emma Brown, 0-2. Managers were Kaylee Hecht, Kylie Marks and Kim Riehl
Another change for next year will be the creation of two large divisions for Class B wrestling. Jefferson High will host the first ever super-divisional wrestling tournament, to be held at the Civic Center in Butte.
