Update on Cassy Herkelman

At the suggestion of my friend Jill Lavender (jills-thrills.blogspot.com), I'll give my views on here about the Iowa state wrestling championship that ended yesterday.

The above video, made by the Cedar Rapids ABC affiliate KCRG, talks about the match Thursday between Cassy Herkelman, the girl I featured in late November for the Cedar Falls Times, of Cedar Falls and Linn-Mar's Joel Northrup.
Northrup decided, due to his religious make-up, he could not find it in his conscience to wrestle a girl. However, the other 13 boys in the Class 3A 112-pound division had no qualms with wrestling a girl (there are 16 wrestlers who qualify, two of them in Class 3A at 112 were girls, Cassy and Ottumwa's Megan Black).
Because Northrup decided to default, not only was Cassy the first girl to qualify for state (Black qualified about an hour later), but she's the first to advance to the quarterfinals. Of course, she lost Friday to Matt Victor of Indianola in the quarters, 5-1, and then Jordan Jones of Des Moines North/Hoover pinned her in 1 minute, 21 seconds.
I wrote in my column in the Independence Bulletin Journal that appeared in yesterday's edition that I thought Northrup should have faced her, because if it were me, gender doesn't matter. It's another wrestler.
However, Northrup issued a statement that said the following:
"Wrestling is a combat sport and it can get violent at times. As a matter of conscience and my faith I do not believe that it is appropriate for a boy to engage a girl in this manner. It is unfortunate that I have been placed in a situation not seen in most other high school sports in Iowa."
He's right ont he last part, though. Iowa doesn't have a separate division for girls in high school wrestling. If a girl wants to wrestler interscholastically in Iowa, they must wrestle boys, unless she happens to draw a girl in either a dual meet or tournament.
In my feature, the Herkelmans told me only three other boys refused to face her. Northrup had two opportunities to face her: once in a dual meet in Cedar Rapids, which he did not participate, and Thursday.
It's sad, really. This girl's accomplishments of making one of the most prestigious tournaments around has been tempered by someone who refused to wrestle her.