IHSAA adds girls wrestling, boys volleyball to sports mix
The Indiana High School Athletics Association announced on Monday that it will be adding girls wrestling and boys volleyball as official sports, upping the number to 24.
Girls' wrestling will take place concurrently with the boys' season. It has had an unofficial state championship series run by the state's coaches' association since 2017 and the number of girls' only tournaments has grown. Boys volleyball will take place in the spring as it has as a club sport.
An IHSAA state tournament will now be established for both sports with those details being announced in the coming months.
The change will mean that the three Monroe County schools that offer wrestling, North, South and Edgewood, will hire or assign coaches specifically to the girls team. Donnie Hillenburg was South's girls' coach last season.
A vast majority of the schools that play boys volleyball are located in the Indianapolis area and another large group in the northwestern part of the state. Interest at all three schools has been minimal and there are no plans at the moment to begin teams.
South of Indy, the only schools involved with the Indiana Boys Volleyball Coaches Association are Center Grove, Floyd Central, Franklin, Jac-Cen-Del, Jeffersonville, Madison, Martinsville, Monrovia, New Albany, Scottsburg, Shelbyville, Silver Creek Terre Haute North, Whiteland and Winchester. In all, only six schools that participate are within an hour's drive of Bloomington.
Among other items approved:
• A proposal for an additional moratorium week as determined by each member school. It will take effect in the summer of 2025. The additional week of no contact between athletes and coaches must occur between Week 48 of one school year and Week 4 of the next school year.
• A proposal that now requires the principals at both the sending and receiving schools in transfer cases to consult one another and provide written verification that there are no athletic motivations and that a transfer is in the best interest of the student.
Failing to advance were two proposals to start baseball practice one week earlier and add girls' lacrosse to the Emerging Sports Process. Also shot down was a proposal for the current threshold of three points (i.e. one regional and one sectional championship) to be increased to four before a school was forced to play in a higher class. The reasoning was the change in several team sports to a one-game regional and a two-game semistate.
Contact Jim Gordillo at jgordillo@heraldt.com and follow on X @JimGordillo.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Girls wrestling, boys volleyball made official IHSAA sports
