Girl wrestlers sixth in Spearfish

By: 
Nathan Steele

The Custer High School Wildcat girls wrestling team competed in the Spearfish Girls Invitational this past Saturday and placed sixth out of 12 teams.
“It was a little rough. We had a couple champions and some girls who lost some close matches and shouldn’t have, but for the most part I think we did OK,” said coach Clayton Sander.
Kiera Thorp placed fifth in the 100-pound weight class, winning two out of four matches. First, she defeated Sage Lichthenberger of Newcastle, Wyo., by 67-3 decision, then lost to Morgan Little of Spearfish by pin before going on to beat Rapid City Central’s Reegan Seever by pin in the fifth place match.
Kayli Morgan also placed fifth but in the 114-pound class. She lost her first match but then went on to beat the next two opponents by pin. In the consolation semifinal, she was defeated by Spearfish’s Madelyn Schlup by 13-1 decision, but went on to beat Jaden Huffman of Douglas by pin in the fifth place round in 1:55.
Addie Sander wrestled at 120 pounds and placed fourth. She won her first two matches by pin before a loss to Harding County’s Kanyn Padden by pin in 1:58. Sander then won her next match against Lemmon’s Natalie Dreiske by pin in 1:34 to put her in the third place match, where she lost to St. Thomas More’s Gabrielle Nelson by 12-10 decision to earn fourth.
At 138 pounds was Tiara Faehnrich, who placed first. She won her first two matches by pin—over Thunder Basin’s (Wyo.) Freedom Johnston in 28 seconds and Mahpiya Luta’s Paeton Janis in 33 seconds. Then she won her next by medical forfeit over Gigi Knapp of Rapid City Central before advancing to the championship round to meet up with Belle Fourche’s Alexa Swaney. Faehnrich beat Swaney by pin in 41 seconds.
“Tiara switched to a new weight class this week, and she completely dominated it from one end to the other,” said Sander.
At 185 pounds was Jessica Hite, who earned first place. Hite won all three matches by pin— first over Little Wound’s Brealle Belt in 45 seconds, then over Mahpiya Luta’s Azilya Iron Eyes in 1:45 and finally over Marlee Hetzel of Spearfish in 3:04.
This week the girls dual with Chamberlain and Winner on Thursday and compete in the Mid Dakota Monster in Presho over the weekend.
“We’ll see some outstanding competition. I’m excited to see how we stack up,” said Sander.
“We’ve had some setbacks. Girls wrestling is growing so fast. For the past couple years, I feel like the other wrestling rooms have been playing catch-up to us and we’ve been doing a lot of dominating,” said Sander, but said that this year, the other teams are more competitive and the girls will need to work harder to stay on top of the competition.
Sander also wants to remind fans that parents night is coming up at the end of the month and he wants stands to be filled with purple and gold in support of the team. Parents night will be Jan. 30 at 5 p.m. at the Armory.

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