THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: 1A track athletes, girls wrestlers rejoice

If you’re a fan of small-school track and field, and/or a fan of girls wrestling in Idaho, you were happy with what happened at the June board meeting of the Idaho High School Activities Association. 

After years of competing against the larger 2A schools at state, the 1A schools will have their own state track and field meet, beginning in 2027. 

And the state girls wrestling tournament, where girls in all classifications previously competed together in the same event, will now be split into two tourneys, for larger and smaller schools.

“It goes back to if you build it, they will come,” Chad Williams, the executive director for the Idaho High School Activities Association, told the Idaho Statesman newspaper of Boise. “We want to provide opportunities for kids to participate. And we do anticipate that if we’re building it, they will come.” 

THE STATE 1A track and field meet will be at Mountain View High School in Meridian, site of the 6A and 5A meets. 

The 2A, 3A and 4A meets will remain at Middleton High, without the 1A athletes competing in the same division as the 2As.  

“Last month, 2A athletes racked up 81% of the individual state titles, 69% of the state placers and 66% of the state qualifiers at the combined 2A/1A meet,” Statesman sports writer Michael Lycklama wrote. 

The 1A meet will have 12 individual qualifiers in each event, instead of 16 as in the other meets. 

In May, junior Tyla Dittman of 1A Kootenai tied for third in the 2A girls pole vault. Athletes from 2A schools finished 1-2. 

Idaho had four state track meets through 2000, then bumped up to five meets the following year when it split the A-1 classification into Division I and Division II. 

Since the 2008-09 school year, when the IHSAA split the 1A classification into Division I and Division II, the D-II athletes competed against the larger-school D-I athletes in one big 1A meet. 

Starting in 2024-25, following a slight shift in enrollment number boundaries, 1A Division I essentially became 2A, and 1A Division II became 1A. In track, the 1As still competed against the 2As at state.

Effective in 2027, the 1As will have their own state track and field meet..

STATE GIRLS wrestling has only been sponsored by the IHSAA since the 2021-22 season. Before that, it was much the same meet, but considered an “invitational.” 

Schools with more than 1,200 students will compete in Division I. Everyone else will compete in Division II. 

That means Coeur d’Alene, Lake City, Post Falls and Lewiston will be the only District 1 and 2 teams in Division I. 

Lakeland, Sandpoint and everyone smaller than them will be in Division II. 

“Girls from Idaho’s smaller schools more than hold their own against the state’s largest programs,” Lycklama wrote. “Athletes from the planned Division II won 64% of the individual state championships, captured 46% of the state medals and accounted for 45% of the state qualifiers last season.” 

Sandpoint’s girls finished fifth last season, the highest of the schools who will be in Division II next year. 

Both state girls tournaments will still have 14 weight classes and 16-person brackets. 

THREE MORE on the moving on to the next level front ... 

Shelby Garten of Timberlake High has signed to wrestle at NAIA Bellevue University in Bellevue, Neb. 

Jaxon Lysne of Post Falls High has signed to play basketball at NAIA College of Idaho in Caldwell. 

Jacori Ervin, formerly of North Idaho College (and before that, North Central High), has committed to play basketball at Bethune-Cookman.

IF YOU thought that was a lot of former Coeur d’Alene Vikings now dotting the rosters of college (and in one case, pro) football teams — and there was — listed in this space a couple of weeks ago, there’s actually one more that the Vikings left off their list, posted recently on social media. 

Joe Hagel is also at Golden West College, a community college in Huntington Beach, Calif. 

That makes six former Vikings at Golden West, and 26 overall at the next (or in one case, the next next) level. 

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 208-664-8176, Ext. 1205, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @CdAPressSports.