GILLETTE (WNE) — The Campbell County School District has added girl’s wrestling as an official school sport for the upcoming school year.

School board members voted unanimously Tuesday to make the girls wrestling program official at Campbell County High School and Thunder Basin High School.

Girls have been allowed to participate in high school wrestling for some time, but they have had to compete with and against boys. The new program will create a division specifically for girls to compete against one another, although they will continue to be part of the wrestling team with boys, similar to sports like track and cross country, said Alex Ayers, district superintendent.

Ayers said the high school athletic directors, who were not at the meeting Tuesday, supported adding the new program.

“I will tell you that the cost of doing that will be relatively small,” Ayers said.

The Wyoming High School Activities Association Board of Directors approved girls wrestling as a sanctioned school sport in April. The winter sport will take place alongside the boys wrestling season in its inaugural 2022-23 school year.

Ayers said other districts in the state have added the girls wrestling program and that there’s excitement for the additional opportunities the new classification provides.

“I think there are some girls that would be interested — I know there are — that don’t want to wrestle against boys,” Ayers said. “That will be the group of people that will be very interested in this new sport.”