CHS to debut wrestling meet

PALMER — For years, Mat-Su Valley wrestling has been nothing short of dominant in Alaska.

At the high school level, Valley teams boast the last nine 4A state team championships. In middle school, Valley teams have combined to win 18 straight state team titles.

Valley prep teams have worked cooperatively with these middle school feeder programs to continue to build the sport in the area. But with separate seasons, Valley coaches have been unable to showcase middle school and high school wrestling squads under the same roof at the same time — until now.

Now that the middle school and high school seasons overlap, Colony head coach Dave Booth came up with an idea to put the Valley’s best grapplers at both levels on the mat in one meet. Thursday, Booth and Colony High will introduce the inaugural Valley Program Championships at CHS.

“As soon as they changed the schedule, I thought of it right away,” Booth said. “If we have a season that overlaps, (I thought), how can we involve the middle school and high school programs together?”

The event — split into three groups of duals — will feature the Colony, Palmer and Wasilla varsity high school teams, in addition to middle school squads from Colony, Palmer and Wasilla. There will be two mats in the Colony gymnasium, with spotlights over each. When Palmer and Wasilla meet at 4 p.m. to start the event, the high school wrestlers will face-off on one mat, and the middle schoolers will meet on the other.

With this format, fans will have the chance to see both levels of action at the same time. In all, there will be 32 matches (18 middle school weight classes and 14 high school weight classes) during each set of duals.

“A championship decided by 32 matches,” Booth said. “I thought that would be really cool.”

Thursday’s event will also feature Colony facing Palmer at 5:30 and Colony meeting Wasilla at 7 p.m.

Booth said there is a traveling trophy, and he hopes to see the three high schools in a rotation to host the event every year.

Teeland Middle School and Academy Charter also sport middle school wrestling and will be involved, Booth said. Wrestlers from each of those schools may compete for either the Colony, Palmer or Wasilla middle school programs on Thursday. To help decide, Booth said zoning is taken into consideration, as well as the results of a recent middle school meet.

“If a kid is going to Teeland and is sold on going to Colony High and he beat the Colony Middle kid (last week), he will wrestle for Colony Middle in the (Valley Program Championships),” Booth said. “He is a member of the Colony program if he’s going to that school.”

Booth said the same scenario could be made for an Academy Charter wrestler. If an Academy wrestler, who is zoned to attend Palmer High, beat a Palmer Junior Middle School wrestler, the Academy wrestler could represent PJMS and the Palmer programs on Thursday.

The idea, Booth said, is to bring the middle school and prep programs even closer together.

“Those (middle school) kids coming in, we want them to already have the idea that this is something they’re part of,” Booth said.

Booth said he wants the Colony Middle wrestlers to feel like they’re a part of the Colony program as a whole.

Booth said he’s like to have the Houston schools involved, but right now it’s impossible. Houston High is a 3A wrestling program that ends its season in December.

But overall, Booth said he feels creating this duals meet is another step toward making Valley wrestling that much more impressive.

“Wrestling in the Valley is a big deal. It’s huge,” Booth said. “I had 87 kids fill out paperwork in our high school. That’s more than our football team.”

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com and follow him at twitter.com/matsu_sports.