Jun. 2—BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — The path to a girls wrestling dual state tournament — and all-girls regular-season dual meets — became clearer on Tuesday.
Girls dual wrestling was approved into Emerging Status at a Minnesota State High School League Board meeting on Tuesday morning.
According to the MSHSL, “Emerging Status” is a two-to-five year transition period where the sport is studied for stability, logistics and implementation. It is the final step before a sport is approved as a fully sanctioned MSHSL activity.
The status change won’t trigger any changes for the probationary period, meaning a girls dual state tournament is at least two years away.
MSHSL rules allow girls wrestlers to compete with the boys team from their school in dual meets. Some high school programs around Minnesota have scheduled all-girls dual meets or tournaments in the regular season in recent years. Teams can schedule up to eight of those events that do not count toward a program’s limit of 16 boys duals.
The MSHSL does sanction girls wrestling individual section and state tournaments.
An extra half-day of action was added to the state tournament this year — it began on a Wednesday afternoon, as opposed to a Thursday morning — which coincided with the expansion of the girls state tournament to 16-wrestler brackets, up from eight wrestlers per bracket in previous years. Each of the eight sections also hosted its own section tournament for girls this year.
The Minnesota Wrestling Coaches Association has hosted a successful girls team state tournament at St. Michael-Albertville High School for the last two years. Chatfield impressed with a second-place finish last year.
If or when girls wrestling moves from Emerging Status to fully sanctioned, girls teams will be able to have a full 16-event schedule, just as the boys do, along with their own state individual and dual tournaments. It will also be classified on its own; it is currently classified under boys wrestling.
Girls flag football was also seeking Emerging Status, for the 2026-27 school year, at Tuesday’s MSHSL board meeting.
The board of directors, however, approved tabling the proposal to provide schools more time to clearly define the sport’s rules and a system of scheduling games.
Currently, flag football is organized and jointly operated by the Minnesota Vikings and the Girls Football Advisory Committee.
The MSHSL and schools around the state will continue discussions with the Vikings to clearly establish the most effective model for the sport, should it be approved for Emerging Status.
The proposal will be listed as an Action Item at the MSHSL board meeting in October. That could allow the sport to have Emerging Status prior to its next scheduled season, in the spring of 2027.
The Vikings have invested more than $600,000 to help the sport get off the ground and grow around the state. There were 104 registered high school flag football teams in Minnesota in the 2026 season, more than double the number that played in 2025 (51).
The MSHSL board also approved an Esports partnership with Fenworks, a Grand Forks, N.D.-based technology company that provides after-school curriculum and competitive leagues. The parternership will be similar to the MSHSL’s role with robotics and with clay target shooting. The league partners with those sports to hold postseason championships, and will do the same with Esports, beginning in the 2027-28 school year.
Esports is projected to have a 10-week regular season in the winter, followed by a regional playoff and then an in-person state championship. More than 100 schools currently participate in Esports.
—The board approved a proposal for girls hockey teams in the state to be divided evenly among Class 1A and Class 2A, beginning in the 2027-28 season. In the 2025-26 school year, there were 57 teams in Class 2A and 50 in Class 1A.
—The board approved MSHSL membership for Paladin Career and Technical High School in Coon Rapids, and Career Pathways, a charter school in St. Paul.