L-P girls to have own wrestling team

Girls wrestling has grown significantly at La Salle-Peru over the past three years.

Junior Kiely Domyancich was the program’s lone female wrestler when she was a freshman.

The Cavaliers had three girls wrestlers in the 2023-24 season and 12 this past season. L-P also had its first female state medalist last season as Domyancich placed fifth at state at 115 pounds.

Going forward, L-P will have separate boys and girls wrestling programs as the L-P High School Board of Education approved the hiring of a girls head coach and girls wrestling assistant coach.

“We are very lucky here at L-P to have a board and administration that understands and sees the need for more coaches to help support this growing girls wrestling team,” L-P boys coach Matt Rebholz said. “It really is great having their support.”

L-P athletic director Steve Hanson said he expects having a separate girls team will help the program continue to grow.

“We anticipate having a girls-only program will increase participation,” Hanson said. “We have witnessed schools similar to ours grow their program by starting a girls-only program.”

Rebholz said having more coaches will be beneficial to all the wrestlers.

“Having two separate coaches allows for the responsibilities to be shared and more people in the room to help show skills and develop wrestlers,” Rebholz said. “This will allow our schedules to open up more because only having four coaches before made it difficult for availability on weekend tournaments.”

Hanson said a coaching hire will be presented to the Board for approval at its next meeting April 23.