Pictured above- Salina Central Wrestling head coach Dalton Peters

When Salina Central senior Kodi Waite stepped first stepped onto a wrestling mat four-plus years ago, she didn’t know what to expect.

 “I think it just caught my eye, like how the sport was,” said Waite, then an eighth grader at Lakewood Middle School with no prior wrestling experience. “I wanted something to keep me busy during the winter season, so I decided to try it out and just kept with it since then.”

Salina Central senior Kodi Waite

That same year, Lakewood sixth-grader Abbie Slothower also decided to give wrestling a try for the first time, though her background was much different. She grew up watching older brother Charlie, a 2024 Central graduate, wrestle all through high school.

“My older brother always wrestled, and so my parents wanted me to try it,” said Slothower, now a Central sophomore who along with Waite and five others make up a Mustang wrestling team currently ranked No. 8 in Class 5A. “I tried it for a year and I just kind of fell in love from there.”

Salina Central sophomore Abbie Slothower

While their paths were different, both Waite and Slothower fell in love with a sport that remains in its relative infancy at the high school level. The Kansas State High School Activities Association did not sanction its first state tournament until 2020, when all six classes competed in one meet at Tony’s Pizza Events Center in Salina.

“Each year it’s getting more and more competitive,” said second-year Central head coach Dalton Peters, who oversees both Mustangs girls and boys programs. “I think it’s awesome how girls have it fully sanctioned in the state of Kansas.”

That was not the case when Peters, a 2016 Central graduate, wrestled for the Mustangs.

“It was co-ed at that point,” Peters recalled. “They were mixed in with the boys, which made for a lot of interesting matches when (girls) would find success.”

Following the inaugural 2020 state tournament, KSHSAA divided into to two classifications, 6-5A and 4-1A, for the next four years. Not until last year did the girls match the boys with separate meets for 6A, 5A, 4A and 3-2-1A.

But in Salina, at least, the middle schools have yet to catch up.

“We had to wrestle guys,” said Waite, now a two-time high school state qualifier and currently ranked fourth in 5A at 155 pounds.

Not that competing against boys was necessarily all bad.

“At least for me, it kind of gave me a base of just how the aggressiveness is a lot different than it is with girls,” said Slothower, who is No. 2-ranked at 125 pounds after placing third as a freshman last year at 110. “I feel like I can take that into my matches now, and just how I wrestle.”

Younger boys and girls have long wrestled each other at the club level.

“Even when I was growing up, girls were involved with kids club wrestling, just like they would be today,” said Peters, a state runner-up as a Central junior in 2015 and third-place finisher as a senior before going on to wrestle at the University of Nebraska. “They were wrestling boys.”

“They were trying to get better, just like they normally would, they just didn’t have their own high school division and it wasn’t sanctioned by the state.”

Peters would still like to see Central’s girls number grow. The Mustangs started with 12 but are now down to seven for various reasons.

But all seven wrestlers are formidable, with four of them are ranked among the top six in their respective weight classes by the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association. In addition to Slothower and Waite, freshman Natalia Garcia is No. 3 at 120 pound and sophomore 235-pounder Kiarra Codling No. 4 after placing fifth at state last year.

Along with Slothower, Waite and Codling, junior 170-pounder Izabella Hall made it to state at 190 last year and senior Phoebe Bohrer is back as a qualifier at 135. Freshman Kendall Munro rounds out a team that has high hopes for the postseason.

“I feel like a lot of our girls are more driven to get where they need to be,” said Waite, who dropped to 155 pounds this season after wrestling the past two at 170. “I feel like our coaches have helped us stay in the right mindset and not get off track.”

Slothower agreed.

“I definitely feel like we have a good mindset this year,” she said. “As a team overall, we’re really strong.”

Central will compete in the 5A West Regional Feb. 14 in Newton, where the top eight finishers in each weight class advance to state Feb. 27-28 at Heartland Credit Union Arena (formerly Hartman Arena) in Park City.

“I would say at every weight we have a good chance of making it to state,” Peters said.

Several of the Mustangs will have to contend with returning champions in their divisions, including Slothower with Kapaun-Mt. Carmel senior Courtney Nye, who defends her 155-pound title, and Waite with defending champ Addison Vogel from Bonner Springs.

But for Waite, she is determined to make the most of her last chance to place at state. A recent second-place finish at the prestigious Newton Tournament of Champions, which she called her best performance of the season, was a sign that she is trending in the right direction.

“I think my main goal this year is to just place somewhere on the podium (top six),” Waite said. “I think that would just be a huge thing for me, to be able to say that I placed at state.”

As for Slothower, she set a high bar last year by finishing third.

“I really want to be at the top of the podium this year and win state,” she said. “It’s the goal that I’ve set for a few years now, and I think that this year I can get there.”