photo by: David Rodish/Journal-World

Free State's Miley Ellis shoots for the legs of a wrestler in the 5th Annual Leavenworth Challenger on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, in Leavenworth.

For the first time since girls wrestling became a KSHSAA sanctioned sport, the Free State and Lawrence girls wrestling teams faced off in a tournament, rather than in practice.

Girls wrestling has been growing in popularity at Lawrence and Free State, but for the first few years of the sport, the teams were small enough to be combined. That changed this year as Free State’s team officially split from Lawrence.

The returning wrestlers will miss spending time with the Lawrence wrestlers they practiced with for so long, but the split brings new opportunities for Free State’s team.

“I miss the friends on Lawrence,” senior Madilyn Pierson said. “It’s nice not to have to drive across town for practice anymore. Going into (this season), we were concerned about what it would be like to have to split (the wrestling room) with the boys, but it turned out really well.”

Carl Springer was hired to be the Lawrence girls wrestling coach in 2023, and in the meantime, he helped lead the Free State program in its infancy. For the past two years, Melle Dye has been a top assistant coach and the de facto head coach of Free State. Last year, as Dye was preparing to become the designated head coach of a split Free State team, Springer tasked Dye with more administrative responsibilities.

“For me, (the challenge) has more been putting practice schedules together, but it’s nice to have a bunch of coaches that are helping me out,” Dye said. “It hasn’t just been me teaching in the wrestling room.”

Now, the Firebirds are their own program under Dye and started the season with a fifth-place finish at the Leavenworth Challenger. The Firebirds scored 240.0 points, only 11.0 points behind the second-place Bonner Springs.

The Free State team saw a massive jump in size this year. The team went from eight wrestlers last season to 20 wrestlers at the time of the first tournament. Free State had 22 wrestlers show up for the first practice and have been able to retain the vast majority of its team.

“It’s a big jump from last year,” Dye said. “It’s good, especially for those lower weight classes like 105, 110 and 120. Those girls have grown up wrestling in club and middle school, so it’s a good transition for them to come in and already have the basics, so we’re just working on fine tuning.”

In the Leavenworth Challenger, the lower weights from 105- to the 120-pound weight class were filled with the team’s young newcomers, and those wrestlers accounted for half of Free State’s 240 team points. Those wrestlers have helped raise the stakes of Free State’s early practices.

“Practices have been intense — girls have stayed committed,” Dye said. “We’re liking the competition.”

One of the benefits of Dye becoming Free State’s head coach was that the wrestlers that returned already understood his coaching philosophy and his standards. For those veterans, they’ve helped shape the team’s culture in its early practices.

“Delaney (Earl) and Mars (Madilyn) Pierson have handled it really well, just knowing my expectations and leading the group,” Dye said. “They’re holding people accountable, and at the end of the day, if nobody is holding them accountable, then we don’t come out here and have these results.”

A lot of the new Firebird wrestlers came in with club or middle school wrestling experience, but there still are a number of wrestlers who are new to the sport. Pierson said that she and the other returners have tried to help the coaches teach those who are new, especially because they understand the way that Dye wants things done.

“Going into (this season), I wanted to make sure that even the girls on the JV team that they’re equally important as the rest of us,” Pierson said. “Everybody knows what they’re doing and knows what’s going on is really important.”

Pierson said the team has already built a strong, family-oriented dynamic. As the Firebirds build their program, culture is something that the returning wrestlers can take from their experiences with the joint team and bring to Free State.

It’s only been a couple of weeks as an individual team, but with the mix of young talent and veteran leadership, the Firebirds have a lot to be excited about.

“I think the split has turned out as good as we could hope for as a team for Free State,” Pierson said.