Wrestlers from every corner of Alaska gathered in Anchorage Dec. 19 and 20 for the high school wrestling state championship.
That included dozens of wrestlers who qualified from Bristol Bay’s Sockeye Conference – and three who brought home first-place state titles.
33 wrestlers from the Bristol Bay region, including athletes from Dillingham, Bristol Bay Borough, New Stuyahok, Koliganek, Newhalen, Akutan and King Cove, entered the arena for the 2025 First National Bank Alaska Wrestling State Championships last month.
In total, 13 wrestlers placed in the top six, and three were named state champions.
Dillingham junior August Reigh was one of those wrestlers. He took home the championship title in the 119-pound weight class. It was his third time at states; last year he placed third. Despite a back injury midseason, Reigh said he went into states ready to go.
“I was just like, super excited. It was weird. I just had never felt this excited for anything,” Reigh said. “And so it wasn't like confidence. It was just, like, I wanted to wrestle. And I think that helped me a lot. Just being like, ‘you're here for a reason. Go have fun.’”
In the 3rd period of the final match, the score was 5-3 with Reigh in the lead. He said it all came down to not getting pinned in the last few seconds.
“I looked at the clock, and there were two seconds left, and I was like, ‘This is awesome. I just won.’” Reigh said. “And so that was, like, a really cool feeling, just to see my coaches happy. And I was like, ‘All right,’ like ‘We did it.’”
Dillingham sophomore Alora Wassily also took home a first-place championship. She competed in the 132-pound weight class after bumping up towards the end of the season. That put her in a bracket with a three-time state champion, Saoirse Cook from Homer, whom she went up against in the finals.
This was not Wassily’s first time at states, she placed fourth last year as a freshman, but it was her first time in the championship match.
“I was kind of nervous, because this girl was a three-time state champ, so I was like, ‘she's done this before. I've never done this before,’” Wassily said. “But I was like, ‘I put all this work in throughout the whole season.’”
She added that, while a little nervous, she was mostly just excited to wrestle.
“I just imagined myself when I was younger in like fourth grade, being so excited to wrestle,” Wassily said. “It was a crazy feeling just being down there warming up for a state championship match.”
The wrestlers said that while on the mat, they could see and hear the crowd of people who traveled from Dillingham cheering them on. Reigh said it helped him keep his energy and confidence up.
“It just made me, like, happy,” Reigh said. “When they all support you, you have more reasons to do it. Instead of just doing it for yourself, you do it for your whole town, and it's really nice.”
Dillingham’s assistant coach, Reed Tennyson, was a three-time state finalist during his time in the program and says those championship moments are built over years of hard work.
“It's not just two hours at practice. It's 6 a.m. workouts. It's camps in the off-season, and just all the little things that go into becoming a state champ,” said Tennyson. “It's 365 days a year, all year long, every year, building up to that moment, and it's just awesome to see kids get rewarded for all of their hard work.”
In addition to Reigh and Wassily, Gusty Tunguing IV from Koliganek also took home the first-place state championship in the 125-pound weight class.
In total, Dillingham finished fourth as a team with 102 points. Three additional Dillingham wrestlers placed in the top five: Chasen Savo finished third in the 125-pound weight class, Kila Greene took third in the 145-pound weight class, and Wyatt Munster finished fifth in the 152-pound weight class.
New Stuyahok placed sixth as a team with 90.5 points and five wrestlers on the podium: Vinny Gust took second in the 103-pound weight class, Abram Gust finished fifth in the 103-pound weight class, Bryson Andrew placed third in the 119-pound weight class, Hunter Gumlickpuk took third in the 130-pound weight class, and Kiser Gust finished sixth in the 135-pound weight class.
Bristol Bay Borough added two more state placers, with Kadin Torino finishing sixth in the 189-pound weight class and Ari Odomin taking sixth in the 235-pound weight class.
At the close of the tournament, the wrestlers returned home with their titles, ready for another year of hard work and training.
