<\/a>Hoonah senior Krista Howland works a move against Soldotna’s Rowan Peck in the girls 126-pound title match during the 2024 ASAA\/First National Bank Alaska Wrestling State Championships on Saturday at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center. (Klas Stolpe \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
A display in the commons above the tournament honored the class from that first sanctioning, and every wrestler competing felt the significance.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“This means everything to me,” Ketchikan junior Summer Boline (36-3) said. She had just lost by fall in the third period of the 132-pound championship to Homer’s Saorise Cook (28-0). “Honestly, girls’ wrestling changed my life. Before wrestling I kind of was lost. Just didn’t know what sport I was in. I tried MMA, I tried gymnastics, nothing really fit, but as soon as coach got me into wrestling it was, like, ‘Oh man, I love this sport.’ I started my freshman year and it’s my junior year and so far just making it to state finals, even though I didn’t win, was probably like one of the biggest moments of my life.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“So I’m really excited and happy to be here and I’m so thankful to all the women before me that helped and gave me these opportunities to just thrive, honestly, I love it here…Girls can do anything. If you want to do it just go do it, like, just because a boy says, ‘Ah, you’re a girl’ don’t let them put you down in any way. You’re a girl wrestling other girls, like, that’s awesome. If you go out there and win that is amazing. Win or lose, honestly, like, that is just a life-changing thing to be all together. Just express who you are. Everyone on the mat is their own person and it is awesome. I meet so many new people.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Hoonah’s Howland said she was inspired by seeing prior girl wrestlers, and “I wake up every morning at 5:30 to go to the gym at 6 to lift weights, then I go to school and then right after school I have practice. And sometimes I even have basketball practice so I am getting in, like, five hours of work every day…The 10th year, oh my gosh this is just amazing. I can’t put it into words. During basketball I tore my ACL and I didn’t know what was going to happen at all. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to wrestle or play basketball and originally the doctors told me that I wasn’t going to be able to, I would have to go through surgery. I thought about it a lot and I just decided to stick through it. Girls, you can do anything you put your mind to.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Howland was also voted the state tournament’s Outstanding Girls Wrestler.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
<\/a>Ketchikan junior Summer Boling attempts to pin Homer’s Saoirse Cook during their 132-pound championship match during the 2024 ASAA\/First National Bank Alaska Wrestling State Championships on Saturday at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center. Boling would lose by Fall. (Klas Stolpe \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Hoonah coach Joseph Cornell noted what Howland has done.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“She has wrestled in the boys’ divisions in junior high and did really well,” he said. “Her championship is everything. It is everything for her and her community and our program. Our program took a little bit of a break and now it is back, and it is stronger than ever and she has inspired a whole generation of wrestlers.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Kiann Williams (37-2), a senior from the Student Wrestler Development Program, an independent private school based in Fairbanks, pinned every opponent she faced, including South Anchorage’s Savannah Stout (26-6) for the 152-pound championship.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“My dad (Sol) wrestled, my uncle wrestled, my uncle used to be my wrestling coach, my brother (Riley) was second in state here two years ago at 125,” Williams said after the match. “It’s kind of a family thing, and I just got into it and I’ve been in other sports, but wrestling is the one thing that I’ve actually been good at and actually clicked. So I have always just stuck with wrestling. And I have a really good connection with my coaches. They’re like family to me so it’s just really enjoyable to me. It is inspiring to think of what girls went through to get us here. My advice to young wrestlers is I know it gets hard and practice is really miserable sometimes, and it is going to get tough, and you are going to want to quit all the time and get burnt out. I’ve been there but in the end when you do things like this, win state, then it is all worth it and when you do big things out of state it is also worth it so just push through it.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
JDHS freshman Nixie Schooler (21-4) pinned her first two opponents before losing in the 107-pound semifinal to eventual state champion SWDP senior Jade Sherry (35-0). Schooler then won two matches in the consolation rounds, including a technical fall win over SWDP’s Megan Cornett (35-9) to win third place.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I feel really good because women’s wrestling is starting to get more popular and is really growing fast and there are a lot of schools here,” Schooler said. “I hope younger wrestlers are inspired. I hope they don’t give up like I do sometimes, but I keep trying. So don’t give up. Now I can eat food, relax and hang out with my friends, and get a job.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
<\/a>Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé freshman Nixie Schooler attempts to pin Student Wrestler Development Program’s Megan Cornett in their girls 107-pound third-place match during the 2024 ASAA\/First National Bank Alaska Wrestling State Championships on Saturday at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center. (Klas Stolpe \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
Standing on the state tournament floor, former MEHS wrestling coach (2000-19) Mike Kimber, 54, looked through misty eyes as the mat action unfolded and fans, filled to the upper decks, loudly showed their love of the sport.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I knew it could become like this,” he said. “I have been to national tournaments. I’ve seen what other states are doing so I knew it could be like this.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Now the women’s director for Alaska USA Wrestling, Kimber brought college coaches from Jamestown University (North Dakota), Evergreen State (Washington) and Linfield (Oregon) to watch the tournament, just another step he’s taken to promote girls’ wrestling.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“This makes my heart soar,” Kimber said. “Ten years and now these girls are competitive and college coaches are excited about these girls. They are talking to them, they want to bring them down and wrestle in college. They want to extend their seasons. It is really super technical here now. The first few years when they were wrestling it was, ‘Yay, you’ve got your shoes on,’ and now you’ve got varsity boys’ coaching out here coaching them at the same level they are coaching their boys. That is a good sign.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Kimber, who coached his daughter Sydnee to four straight state titles — all of which he says “she earned, she was not the coach’s daughter” — pushed to give girls their own tournament at state for over eight years and in 2014 his petition to ASAA to sanction girls wrestling in Alaska was honored.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
<\/a>Soldotna’s Mia Hannevold and Mt. Edgecumbe’s Nevaeh George shake hands before their girls 114-pound title match during the 2024 ASAA\/First National Bank Alaska Wrestling State Championships on Saturday at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center. (Klas Stolpe \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
When he was inducted into the 2018 Alaska Sports Hall of Fame, his ballot cited the work he had done to bring high school girls’ wrestling to Alaska.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Really it was a lot of people working together,” he said. “Billy (Strickland), at ASAA, when he came in he said, ‘We’re going to make a statement about this and help support it,’ is a big reason this is here. If it wasn’t for Billy I could have made all the proposals in the world and it wasn’t going to happen.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
They needed 100 girls to hold the first tournament, but were short two.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Billy said, ‘Two girls are not stopping 98 from having their own tournament…’ 2014 was a big deal. It was all small schools because the large schools did not have enough and the seasons were opposite. When the seasons were realigned then we could have a unified state tourney. We were the fifth state to sanction girls’ wrestling, we’re one of the original six (Hawaii 1998, Texas 1999, Washington 2007, California 2011, Alaska and Tennessee 2014).”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
That number jumped to 26 states by 2021 and now girls’ wrestling is sanctioned in all 50.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Kimber also coaches youth club wrestling, and some of his alumni were wrestling in the boys and girls state tournaments.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Homer girls coach Tela O’Donnell Bacher is a 2001 Mariners alum who returned to coach.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I wrestled with the boys,” O’Donnell Bacher said. “My highest placing was sixth when I was a senior when it was a co-ed state tournament…This state tournament is really cool. To just see the development, and the growth and the acceptance of women’s wrestling, and then just how far all these girls have come is pretty impressive. When I started there were a few girls here, a couple on my team once in a while, some in Soldotna here and there, but it always had to be smaller weights, right? Because you’re wrestling boys and you’re wrestling people who have gone through puberty. You don’t have that testosterone and you’re wrestling people who have it…Now we have girls from all the different weights who excel at it and there will be so many girls that will do wrestling if they wrestle other girls. Now we see the growth and development and depth of that…It is pretty cool to see the differences in the last 25 years.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t