By Rodney Haas

605 Sports 

RAPID CITY — As the state’s best wrestlers gather in Rapid City for this weekend’s state wrestling tournament, questions have surfaced about the host site’s future.  

One of those questions in recent years has been if the state wrestling tournament will be permanently held in Rapid City as a compromise for holding the state track and field championships in Sioux Falls. 

Currently the state wrestling tournament is scheduled for Sioux Falls in 2026 and returning to Rapid City in 2027. Meanwhile, the state track meet is scheduled for Sioux Falls for the foreseeable future. 

“It’s something we've talked about,” said Dan Swartos, executive director of the South High School Activities Association, about the idea of holding state wrestling in Rapid City permanently. “There's nothing official on that. It's kind of shifted to two years out-of-three there (Rapid City) and it used to be two-out-of-three years the other way (Sioux Falls). So it's kind of shifted to the other way.

“Track is in Sioux Falls every year because our membership has requested a three-day state tournament with all classes at the same facility and we weren't able to do that at the facility out in Rapid City.”

Swartos added the association tries to balance things out as much as they can, and said there’s been no official action from the board to move wrestling to Rapid City on a permanent basis.  

“Every year we will continue talking through and then working with our site selection committee as we move forward,” he said. 

As the association continues to move forward, one of the things it will have to consider is the continued growth of girls wrestling. 

According to Swartos, there were 2,200 boys competing in wrestling this year and 695 girls. It’s a number that has consistently gone up from 120 girls the first year, 250 the next year and 400 last year.  

“Eventually, it'll level out but we've been really happy with the growth,” he said. “There’s challenges with that as well but we're trying to manage as we keep working through this sport, but we're really happy with it. I think girls wrestling has a bright future”

Swartos admits the challenges faced have been good, because it's a sign of the continued growth for the sport, but said the association is still trying to figure out the best way to get girls qualified for the state tournament. 

He said this year the SDHSAA combined both A and B regions and had four girls regions. However, Region 4 which consists of mostly West River schools had more girls than any other region, according to Swartos.  

“There's coaches that want us to try to even that out and we're gonna look and see if there's an easier way to do that or if there's a better way to push that all through,” Swartos said. “It’s one of those things where you don't know what you don't know until you get out there and try it and see the numbers. 

“We try to even out our numbers on the boys side as well. Cross-country and golf, it's a similar issue that we have across other sports.”

As the numbers of girls participating in wrestling continues to grow, eventually there will be a need to break it up into two classes. Swartos said he doesn't envision that to happen until numbers reach close to 1,000. 

However, adding another class to the girls, would lead to more challenges. Currently the state wrestling tournament consists of three tournaments competing on eight mats. 

“We'll have to address all of those issues as girls wrestling grows,” Swartos said. “If we continue to hold the state tournaments on the same day? If we're able to for space and capacity and what do we do for classifications for girls as their numbers continue to grow? Do we keep it at one class to split into two classes and those all run into the number of mats that we’re able to use. At the moment we're sticking with eight mats for our state tournament and will continue evaluating that as we go.”

While the continued growth of girls wrestling will likely lead to both A and B girls wrestling in the next few years, what about a separate state tournament weekend for wrestling, similar to basketball?  

“Potentially. Our hope is to keep them together for as long as we can, as long as space allows and time allows it, to make sure we get that packed atmosphere for them,” Swartos said. “That's been our hope is to try to keep them together as much as possible, but as it continues to grow we might run into a time where it is best to split them.”  

State Dual Tournament 

Swartos said he was pleased with the job Pierre did in hosting the state dual tournament on Feb. 14-15, but admits it can be challenging given hotel availability in the Capital City when the State Legislature is in town.  

This year the state dual tournament fell during President’s Day weekend which meant the legislature adjourned on Thursday and didn’t come back into session until Tuesday. Because of this it opened up rooms for the B dual which was held Friday and the A dual on Saturday.  

“I think that helped in not having the legislature in session. They were out on Thursday and that opened up a lot of hotel rooms,” Swartos said. “I was a little nervous about going into it. We were able to get everyone in. It was tight, but that made it loud and that made a good atmosphere and I think people really liked it. We're going to have to look at attendance and stuff  …. but we will review that. I think people really appreciate it, the job that Pierre did and the atmosphere that we had within that gym.”