Peninsula wrestling teams bring home 11 state titles
- Homer News
- Dec 26, 2024
- 2 min read
By Jeff Helminiak • Homer News - December 26, 2024 2:30 am
The Soldotna girls wrestling team defended its team title Saturday at the state wrestling meet at the Alaska Airlines Center in Anchorage to punctuate another big day for the Kenai Peninsula.
The peninsula had a combined 20 wrestlers in the finals across the girls, Division I and Division II tournaments, coming home with 11 state titles.
That’s after taking 13 of 21 in 2023 and 14 of 16 in 2022. In the five state tournaments before that, the most state titles for the peninsula was seven, and the largest number of finalists was 11.
Pete and Tanya Dickinson opened the All American Training Center just outside of Soldonta in the summer of 2020 with the goal of lifting the level of wrestling on the peninsula.
Though not all of the wrestlers having success train there, the level has been lifted by the 15,000-foot facility, which is run by Soldotna assistant coach Sage Castillo.
“We’re here to build wrestling in Alaska,” said Pete Dickinson, the Soldotna head coach. “I invite every single kid on the peninsula to come train with us and then go back to their school and build them up.”
Sophomore Mia Hannevold led the Stars to their team title with her first championship, while Homer junior Saorise Cook won her third state title and completed a 31-0 season.
At Division I, SoHi senior Jacob Strausbaugh finished 44-0 and won his third state title, while junior Michael Dickinson finished 43-0 and won his first state title. SoHi senior Hunter Bras went out with his first state title.
At Division II, three Seward wrestlers all won for a second straight year — seniors Tommy Jarnig and Hunter Forshee-Kurtz, and sophomore Ridge Conant. Forshee-Kurtz is the first Seward wrestler to win three state titles.
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