For four years, the Cottonwood Colts girls wrestling program has been gaining footing in Class 4A. 

On Feb. 14, it officially arrived. 

Cottonwood senior Johana Pilcova finished in fifth place at the 4A state girls wrestling championships, going home with a medal. 

It was the first girls wrestling medal won at state at Cottonwood. Pilcova captured hers after advancing in the first round to Friday’s quarterfinals, where she lost by fall to Mountain Crest’s Mackenzi Saunders, and yet even that took her opponent four minutes and 36 seconds to complete. 

That was the story all season for girls high school wrestlers when they had to lock arms with Pilcova, who wrapped up her final year finishing with a 26-8 record. Pilcova also came in second at 4A Divisionals, the qualifying meet for the state championships. (Her Cottonwood teammate Leila Rascom finished in seventh place at 4A Divisionals.) 

Head coach Isaac Halliday is relatively new to coaching high school wrestling. As a matter of fact, the Cottonwood coach got the top job by default—the other head coach left town. From there, the late Athletic Director Greg Southwick offered the position, and Halliday accepted it. 

“I became a coach when a friend, whom I introduced to wrestling in middle school, called me in 2018 and told me he was offered the head coach position at Cottonwood High School and needed an assistant,” Halliday said. “I was recovering from a shoulder surgery at the time and wasn’t working, so I agreed and now I’m the head coach after he moved to Ohio. Wrestling has always been a passion of mine, and I always wanted to coach. This was a great opportunity to get started.” 

From the looks of it, Halliday and his staff have been doing a great job preparing this Colts girls wrestling squad. Only one other wrestler in Class 4A at 145 pounds had a better record this year than Pilcova, who also won a first-place medal at the Bruin Tournament at Mountain View during the regular season and second place at Battle of the Mine at Tintic High School in Eureka. 

Pilcova’s efforts this season at state certainly marked a milestone for Cottonwood’s relatively new girls wrestling program; Klasina Duckworth came awfully close to one last year, finishing seventh at those state championships. 

Along with Duckworth at last year’s Divisionals, Christina Paluzzi and Alexandra Wold also finished in the top eight—the first time that three Colts girls wrestlers did so at a state qualifier. Paluzzi would go on to sign to wrestle at Alfred State College in New York, after the 2024-25 school year. 

When you take a moment to consider that girls wrestling has only been a sanctioned sport in Utah for four years, making that much progress in such a short time is commendable for any program. 

This all preceded the success that the Cottonwood boys wrestlers had this year—beginning with what they achieved at 4A Divisionals. 

Moving down the boys weight classes, Jaxton Danner finished in sixth place at 150 pounds, D’Andre Salazar was fourth at 175 pounds and Jacob Stephens, eighth. That qualified all three Cottonwood boys for the 4A state championships at UVU based on how they fared at Divisionals. 

At the state championships in the 150-pound weight class, Danner lost his first-round match by fall in one minute, 16 seconds to Ethan Richard of Stansbury. 

Salazar also lost his first-round match at state to Mountain View’s Asher Kieth by fall in two minutes and 37 seconds. 

Stephens lost in the first round as well by technical fall, one minute and 18 seconds in to Carter Egbert of Mountain Crest. 

Together, however, Danner, Salazar and Stephens won first-place medals at the Battle of the Mine during the regular season to go with the medals they won at Divisionals—keepsakes they’ll have along with all the moments when their wrestling days are just memories. 

Also, Simon Bowles and Nilton Deleme went home with third place medals at that Battle of the Mine meet and also went undefeated at 5-0 during the Mountain View Bruin Tournament. 

In total, there are about two dozen Colts varsity wrestlers coached by Halliday, who was assisted on the mats by Matthew Kahn and Rick Roby. 

To have had four Cottonwood wrestlers compete at the state championships in the same year, and then have the first girls wrestler in school history win a medal at state, makes one to add to the history books for coach Halliday and his team.