Arguably no district team has embraced the Poudre School District branding like the Stars girls wrestling squad over the past few years.
It makes perfect sense, because this year’s team is a prime embodiment of communitywide participation.
The Stars feature athletes from eight different “school situations,” including all six fully-public large PSD high schools.
“You do a lot of pushing in different directions — kind of like wrestling — when you have athletes from everywhere,” PSD coach Desiree Kendall said.
All the pushing has pulled the program up. Four more Stars are heading to the state tournament this week (Feb. 15-17 in Denver) with the program’s biggest roster yet.
“It’s way more fun to be on a district team,” PSD wrestler and Rocky Mountain junior Ezry Bonomo said. “It feels like you’re part of something bigger.”
“Having the district part in our name is good, because I think it’s harder to convince people from other schools to join when it’s a specific school’s team.”
District teams are already unique dynamics. For example, the PSD hockey program pulls from all of Northern Colorado, with just two teams in the whole region.