Albuquerque Academy is paving the way with a head start on girl’s high school wrestling in New Mexico putting together schedules and rosters and coaches and programs in season one for the other gender

Well, at least Albuquerque Academy has girl’s wrestling in gear, for in checking out most of the 70 New Mexico schools on the list for the initial season that will have girls teams taking to the mats, only the Chargers present a schedule and a roster and even a coach.

Their website has boy’s head coach Troy Rodgers in the same role with the girls, a full schedule, and two junior girls, Melinda Modisette and Sara Wang, on the roster. Hopefully Academy will add to its roster before the first match rolls along on Jan. 3rd at the Lady Pinto Invite at Moriarty, which has this listed but so far its girls page is empty.

It’s the same around the state or at least on the school website checked out. This includes the Santa Fe area schools like St. Michael’s, Capital, Santa Fe High, and Pecos, along with Espanola Valley, Pojoaque Valley, Robertson, West Las Vegas, and Taos. The problem here is not putting together a schedule, but getting enough grapplers on rosters.

“We have three girls,” said Rio Rancho Cleveland Athletic Director Matt Martinez, “and have one meet scheduled, that being the Rio Rancho High Invite on Feb. 8 at the Rams.”

At least Albuquerque Academy has a girl’s coach listed on its website, that of boy’s coach Rodgers, and he includes Modisette and Wang on his boy’s roster with an F in parenthesis.

The Charger boys did open their campaign with a resounding 48-24 win at Grants, and have the Rio Hondo Invite at Roswell up next. But this will be only practice time for Modisette and Wang, and a learning experience while they await their turn for actual competition.

But at least the Academy appears to have a head start on establishing a girl’s program on the mats. Mostly all boy’s matches are attended by the other gender, and now it has a chance to have spectators watch them.

Now the schedule has the girl’s District Invitational to compete on Feb. 14 and maybe even on the 15th at Socorro. The state championships are penciled in for Feb. 21 and 22 at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho.

Like they say, Romano wasn’t built in a day, but with more interest, grappling for girls will be much sooner.