Every fall, volleyball and girls’ winter sports end up colliding. The overlap hits hardest for athletes who make the state volleyball tournament and then immediately have to jump into basketball or wrestling. It’s baffling that we keep letting this happen year after year. If you’re not sure what I mean, let me break it down.
Notable Sports Start Dates (2025)
Girls Sports Dates:
Girls Golf began on August 4th, 2025. The state tournament ran from September 29th-30th.
Cross-Country practice began on August 11th, 2025. The State cross-country meet is October 24th-25th, 2025.
Volleyball practice began on August 18th. State volleyball is from November 20th-22nd.
Girls Basketball practice begins on November 17th, 2025. This is where the rubber meets the road. Let’s quickly take a look at the start dates on the boys side.
Boys Sports start dates:
Cross-Country practice began on August 11th, 2025. The State cross-country meet is October 24th-25th, 2025.
Football practice began on August 7th, 2025. The Dakota Bowl finals are on November 14th, 2025.
Boys Basketball practice begins on December 1st, 2025. First contest is December 12th, 2025.
Wrestling practice begins November 10th, 2025. First contest is November 21st, 2025.
The Obvious Fix To The Overlap
There isn’t a person reading this that doesn’t immediately think to start volleyball practice earlier. Is that a meatball take? Maybe. With that being said let’s take a look at the options.
Football practice starts 11 days earlier than Volleyball. The Dakota Bowl finals are eight days prior to the state championship volleyball match. Wrestling gets the short end of the stick a little bit with their start date being November 10th, but there isn’t much wiggle room on that front. If there is, please let me know.
I can’t think of a good reason why volleyball practice wouldn’t start the same day as football practice. By doing that you could hold games during the first week of school. If you started the same day as girls golf, August 4th, you could hold the state volleyball tournament 2 full weeks earlier than it is now. August 7th would require a little effort in the scheduling to get things done, but it would be very doable.
So the obvious fix in my opinion would be starting Volleyball practice at least on the same day as football practice. If needed, start it the same day as girls golf.
By doing this, the state volleyball tournament could run from November 13th-15th. If people didn’t want to overlap the Dakota Bowl and State Volleyball, start volleyball on August 4th with Golf, and have State volleyball take place November 6th-8th.
Girls Basketball + Girls Wrestling Needs The Change
Right now, there are 16 girls basketball teams that will not have their full team at practice for the first week. Girls wrestlers that also play volleyball miss the first two weeks. The overlap is so easily solvable it blows my mind that it hasn’t been done, and doesn’t really get that much attention at the state level.
Quick recap:
We start a girls fall sport 11 days after a boys fall sport.
The girls winter sport starts 14 days BEFORE the boys winter sport.
The NDHSAA:
About The Author
