Edgecumbe High Wrestlers Win State Title

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Created on Monday, 23 December 2024 15:38

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By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Sports Editor
    In the capstone of a wrestling season that hit many high notes throughout the fall, Mt. Edgecumbe High School Braves made history Saturday in Anchorage, winning the school’s first-ever state wrestling championship.
    Three of the team’s wrestlers won individual titles and many others placed near the top of their weight brackets.

Mt. Edgecumbe fans support a Braves wrestler during the 2024 ASAA/First National Bank Alaska Wrestling State Championships, Saturday at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center over the weekend. The Braves took home the school's first state title. (Photo by Klas Stolpe / Juneau Empire)

Mt. Edgecumbe senior RJ Didrickson attempts to pin Haines senior James Stickler in their 215 pound DII title match during the 2024 Wrestling State Championships, Saturday in Anchorage. (Klas Stolpe / Juneau Empire)

    Competing against the best wrestlers in the state in the ASAA Division II tournament at the Alaska Airlines Center, Mt. Edgecumbe’s boys team secured first place with 212 points, followed by Homer in second with 148 and Dillingham third with 129.
    The Sitka High Wolves took 20th out of 42 teams. A story on their state performance will appear in the Sentinel later this week.
    In the girls tournament, which combined large and small schools, Mt. Edgecumbe placed seventh, outdone only by larger schools from Anchorage, Fairbanks and the Kenai.
    The team stepped up and performed as needed in the tournament, coach Deedee Creed said by phone on Sunday.
     “They took it seriously, and they didn’t look for big moves. They just worked to improve their position throughout the tournament,” Creed said. “They worked to get their takedowns, and then they just kind of kept the pressure on their opponents throughout the tournament.”
    That strategy of consistent performance delivered them the Region V title the week prior, and it worked again in Anchorage, as 13 of 14 MEHS wrestlers scored points, and eight made it to the final four in their respective brackets. Three others, RJ Didrickson, Elden Andrew and Donovan Standifer, won state titles in their weight classes, too.
    Didrickson, a senior from Hoonah, wrestled in the 189-pound weight class for the regular season, but moved up to 215 for regions and remained there for the state tourney.
    “I kind of got to let everything go and just wrestle my best match and just wrestle to win. And it was a lot more enjoyable,” Didrickson said from Anchorage. “And there were some tough guys, I had some harder matches. Obviously, some of those guys have almost 40 pounds on me. So it was an awesome learning experience. I feel like I was able to evolve as a wrestler and find out which stuff works. There’s a completely different wrestling style when I’m wrestling these guys that are heavier than me, because I can’t get caught underneath them.”
    Didrickson won the state title in a match against another Southeast wrestler, James Stickler of Haines. He thinks he and his team performed well through the year because they’ve focused on the fundamentals of the sport.
    “Like I was saying earlier in the year, I feel like the simple stuff, the stuff that we’ve been drilling all year, that’s the stuff that works on every level, and it worked up here. Nobody on our team won any matches by some crazy last minute throw. It was just good, solid wrestling the whole time through, and just being in a good position,” said Didrickson said. “And for me personally, I think I have one of the best shots in the state. So my shot was there; I feel like my shot’s always there. And just the adaptability, just being able to move up, even in the middle of a match, waiting to adapt to other people’s wrestling styles.”
    Didrickson, who won a state title last year in the 171-pound bracket was happy to be a captain on the squad when it made history with its first team title.
    “The team title is something that Edgecumbe has never done for boys. And I think it’s awesome. I mean, our guys performed and came up to the challenge, and just our amazing coaching staff and all our support that we’ve had; I wouldn’t have wanted it to go any other way,” he said.
    Didrickson said he thinks the team will remain solid next year despite graduating a number of seniors.
    “Southeast as a whole is just getting exponentially better at wrestling, and I think Edgecumbe is going to still be at the top next year,” he said. “I mean, that’s the plan. We have a lot of people coming back, and I think our leaders and our seniors that have been here have left a good imprint on the younger kids. I think it’s just going to fuel them even more.”
    Courtney Howard, who coaches alongside Creed, was named Head Coach of the Year, and the Braves’ Aaron Routon was named assistant coach of the year.
    “RJ and Donovan, they came in as one-seeds and they were more or less expected to win, and all our kids really performed very well at the tournament,” Howard said. “For the most part, pretty much everybody either did as well as you’d expect or did better... Everybody kept their composure and wrestled well.”
    While Didrickson was the top seed in the state in his weight class, Mt. Edgecumbe junior Elden Andrew, from Nushagak, went into his bracket unranked, but turned the tables and won an individual state title in the 130-pound competition.
    “First I went against the fifth seed. That was one of my hardest matches – I won by one point. The next match, I went up against the fourth seed. It was a pretty tough match, but I pinned them in the third period. I think after that I went on to go against the first seed in the semifinals. He had a pretty strong stance, and... I pinned him in the first period,” Andrew recalled.
    He won the championship match against Unalaska’s Cache Henning by a single point.
    “The kid was super strong and fast and quick… It feels so surreal, because in my freshman and my sophomore years, I wasn’t even close to placing,” he said.
    Like his teammates, Andrew has put lots of effort into his wrestling abilities.
    “I was putting in the work to get where we are, I’ve been working hard and practicing,” he said. “We’ve been talking about this ever since the beginning of the wrestling season, that we wanted to get a team title, and we worked hard for it.”
    He hopes next year the Braves return to the mat ready to go for a second state title.
    “Just keep working hard and practice and come back for that back-to-back title for the team… The team vibe was very good, everybody was happy and smiling. Everybody was in a good mood,” he said.
    In the 119-pound weight class, Evan Andrew took second place; Torian Dull took fourth at 152; Jorge Sandoval was sixth in the 160-pound bracket; in the 171-pound contest, Samson Smith took fourth; Kaden Herrmann and Carlos Sandoval earned second and third place respectively in the 189-pound bracket. Donovan Standifer overcame Barrow’s Norman Lilomaiava to take a state title in the 285-pound weight class.
    “I think a lot of them felt like they wanted to be a part of something bigger, and they wanted to do it for their team, not just for themselves, individually. And that, I think, motivated them to another level to win that match or win by a pin versus points, because that also affects the team score,” coach Creed said.
    In the girls tournament, which, unlike the boys’ combined schools of all sizes from across the state, the Lady Braves took seventh place out of 45 teams on the mat, outperformed only by larger schools classified in Division I in the boys tournament.
    Nevaeh George, an MEHS senior from Newtok, took second place in the 114-pound bracket, the best individual placing of any Edgecumbe girl since 2018.
    Her bracket, she said, was challenging.
    “My semifinals match was where I was the least confident. I thought I knew I was going to lose... but then I got through it, and got through my semifinals match, and I was so surprised that I was going into the finals,” George recalled.
    Looking back on the season, she said, “it feels amazing.”
    She took second place after a final match against Mia Hannevold of Soldotna, and said the fact that the wrestling season is now over hasn’t quite sunk in.
    “I still can’t believe my season is over; it still hasn’t hit me yet. In my finals match, I wasn’t scared of losing because I would have never expected to be that high up in the state tournament, so I would have been happy either way, win or loss in the finals,” she said.
    Her teammate Alexia Zacharof took third place in the 165-pound bracket; Sophie Didrickson placed sixth at 235.
    Looking to the future, coach Creed hopes the team can stay strong, and wants to expand the Mt. Edgecumbe girls wrestling program.
    “I’d like to see our girls continue to grow and start upping our level on the girls team. My goal with the girls this year was to have as many girls complete or finish the season as possible.”
    As it turned out, the numbers on the girls and boys teams were about equal at the end of the season.
    Though a number of seniors on the team will graduate in the spring, six state placers will be back next year.
    “We still have a really strong underclassman team,” Creed said. In addition to winning the coach of the year honor, she was named to the board of Alaska Wrestling. She said she plans to make a website for the organization.
    She hopes the Southeast wrestling boom continues, and expressed thanks to MEHS families, spread across the state, for their support of the team.
    “We just like to let the parents know that we’re grateful to be able to care for their kids and create opportunities for them,” the coach said.