Panthers, Broncs to join forces

Alberton High School athletes will have the opportunity next year to participate in two new sports, thanks to an athletic co-op with Frenchtown High School.

The Alberton School Board approved a co-op at their monthly meeting Thursday, which would allow Alberton boys to wrestle and girls to play soccer with the Frenchtown Broncs. Frenchtown High School had already voted to go ahead with the co-op.

“It works out really well for us,” said Frenchtown Superintendent Randy Cline.

Alberton students will have to buy an activity ticket for $10 to participate in the co-op and the school will have to pay $250 in fees for each team to the Montana High School Association. Alberton athletes will be responsible for getting themselves to and from Frenchtown for practices and before away games. Other than that, they will participate in athletics just like any other Frenchtown athlete.

“Since we already have coaches and we already have equipment, it’s no big deal for them to come jump on the bus with us,” Cline said.

Frenchtown already had both a wrestling team and a girl’s soccer team, but Cline said they were looking to build their numbers.

“Obviously, Alberton is attractive for us to offer a co-op with because they’re only 12 miles from Frenchtown. I’ve actually worked in other schools where the distance of the co-op was a lot greater and it’s worked out pretty well,” Cline said.

This year, there were 28 wrestlers on the Frenchtown team and Cline said with Alberton’s help he hopes to get that number well above 30 to better fill out the 15 available weight classes.

“There’s a lot of room for kids to participate in both varsity and junior varsity wrestling,” Cline said. He also said that of the 16 girls who played on the Frenchtown soccer team last year, eight were seniors and Alberton’s help will keep their soccer team going strong. Last year was the first season for Frenchtown’s soccer team.

Cline said the interest in the co-op began with the Frenchtown Wrestling Club, an organization that already gets participation from Alberton kids who are too young for high school wrestling. The president of the club, Debbie Ishler, is actually an Alberton resident.

Cline said that Ishler approached him about a co-op some time ago and he and Alberton Superintendent Jim Baldwin have been working together to make it happen ever since.

Because of Title 9, the school had to create a girls team to balance out the creation of the new boys team. The administration polled the Alberton girls as to which Frenchtown sport they would most like to participate in and they chose soccer.

“I think it’ll be a good opportunity for Alberton students to be able to participate in something that they could only participate in when they were in junior high,” Cline said.

Cline said the co-op still has to be approved by the MHSA during their meetings this week, but he is confident that they will approve it. He added that since Baldwin is the president of the MHSA, odds are the approval will go through.

“The idea of cooperating between the schools and sharing the two sports is kind of exciting,” Cline said.