Some of the top area Class A, B boys and girls grapplers entered in state individual tourney
SIOUX FALLS — Watertown senior Sloan Johannsen and freshman Gage Lohr already know what it's like to win a state high school individual wrestling championship.
Both Johannsen, who already has won three state titles, and Lohr are defending Class A champions and part of a group of 27 area boys and girls' wrestlers who could be wrestling on center state at 1 p.m. Saturday in title matches in the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center.
The three-day individual tourney, which features Class A and B boys divisions and a one-class girls division, opens on Thursday and continues through Saturday with the championship matches slated to be broadcast on South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
Want to know which northeastern South Dakota wrestlers likely have the best chance to be on television on Saturday? Here they are:
Sloan Johannsen, Watertown
The list just couldn't start with anybody else. The senior standout has a 178-2 career record and is looking to become only the second grappler in school history to win four state Class A titles. Rick Jensen accomplished the feat in 1971-74.
Johannsen is the No. 1 seed at 126 pounds and if the seeding plays out he would meet No. 2 seed Aberdeen Central senior Rayden Zens (32-4) in the finals. The only two losses of Johannsen's career have come to Zens, including a 6-5 defeat in January that halted a 155-match win streak for Johannsen.
The Arrow standout, who has beaten Zens in three other matches this season, has won 20-straight matches since the loss and is now tied with Sawyer Hoffman with the most career wins in Watertown wrestling history. One win at state would put him on top.
Sloan Johannsen: Standout seeking to become only the second Arrow wrestler ever to win four state Class A titles
Gage Lohr, Watertown
Lohr broke on the scene last year by winning the 106-pound state A title as an eighth-grader and has been even more dominant this winter. He is one of only two wrestlers in Class A with an undefeated record (43-0).
Title No. 2 likely won't come easy and could involve Lohr squaring off with another defending champion (senior Trevon Oehme of Brandon Valley) in the championship. Oehme is the No.2 seed. Lohr has three wins over the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds but hasn't wrestled Oehme this winter.
Mason Schrempp, Aberdeen Central
Schrempp, a junior is a three-time state place winner for the Golden Eagles, who qualified all 14 of their wrestlers for the tourney. Schrempp just might have the best chance to win since he's the No. 1 seed at 157 pounds with a 22-4 record.
What's interesting is that all four of his losses came to out-of-state wrestlers this winter and he's yet to face any of the other top four seeds in his weight class.
Katrina Gibson, Aberdeen Central
Gibson went 35-8 as a junior last February and won the 154-pound state championship. She enters this weekend's state tourney with a 36-8 record and the No. 2 seed at 165.
Gibson traded pins with top-seeded Maizy Mathis of Brookings this season and the matchup could come down to best-of-three.
State Wrestling: Individual and team champions to be crowned in Class A and B boys as well as girls
Grady Fey, Redfield
The Redfield senior would love to close out his career with a State B championship at 285 pounds. Fey is the No. 1 seed in the weight class and enters the state tourney with a 45-0 record.
A two-time state runner-up, Fey lost to fall to Canton's Traun Cook in the state championship last February. Fey owns a win by fall over Cook and No. 4 seed Shetston Shelbourn of Winner Area so far this year.,
Brody Randall, Hamlin-Castlewood
Brody's sister Brooklynn, a seventh-grader, is one of six Watertown wrestlers who will compete in the girls' tourney. Brody instead will focus on continuing his perfect season as a sophomore 113-pounder for Class B Hamlin-Castlewood.
Randall (40-0), who placed fifth at 106 pounds last winter, is the No, 1 seed and owns a win by fall over No. 2 seed Brody Gossen of Marion-Freeman.
Olivia Anderson, Watertown
Want to know which of the 190 girls' wrestlers at state has the most wins so far this season? That would be Anderson, an eighth-grader who is 43-1 and seeded No. 1 at 100 pounds. As an undersized seventh-grader last winter, she went 36-14 and placed fourth at 106 pounds.
Anderson's lone loss this year came to Canton's Finley Evjen, the No. 2 seed who she has beaten in three other matchups.
Summer Guthmiller, Sioux Valley
The 132-pound freshmen is 36-3 and the No. 1 seed in the girls' 132-pound division. All three of her losses came to Bon Homme-Scotland-Avon's Peyton Hellman, who is 38-0 at 138 and chasing a third-straight state title. Guthmiller is 4-0 with four falls against the three other top four seeds at 132.
Guthmiller went went 33-10 and placed fifth at 142 pounds as an eighth-grader.
Allison Konrad, Watertown
How about another No. 1 seed? The Arrow sophomore is 40-2 and the top seed at 185 pounds. She has two pins over the No. 4 seed and another over the No. 2 seed. And did we mention that both her losses came to out-of-state wrestlers.
Konrad placed fifth at 190 with a 25-15 record last winter.
Haeden Jorgenson, Webster Area
Jorgenson's bid for a state B title at 132 pounds fell short last year when he lost by fall to Owen Hansen of Burke-Gregory, but the Bearcat sophomore is back this winter to make another run at a championship. He's 36-2 and the No. 2 seed at 138 pounds.
Both of Haeden's losses came to No. 1 seeded Kellen Hurd of Miller/Highmore-Harrold (44-1), who he also beat 6-2. The path is there for meeting No. 4.
Micah Hach, Watertown
If Fey isn't the best wrestler in the state without an indivdiual title, than it's Hach, a junior who is 44-1 and the No. 2 seed at 285 pounds in Class A. He finished third as a freshman and second as a sophomore at 285 behind Brandon Valley senior Navarro Schunke, who won by fall over Hach in their only regular-season meeting this winter.
Schunke is 38-0 and looking to become the first Class A wrestler in state history with five state titles. Hach is likely the only wrestler in the 16-team bracket who has any shot at derailing those plans.
Rayden Zens, Aberdeen Central
Talking about good wrestlers without state titles, Zens fits the bill and is already a three-tije state place winner. He was thrd at 106 as a freshman, fourth at 120 as a sophomore and sixth at 126 as a junior.
Zens also owns a 7-1 win over No. 3 seed Aidan Wells of Sioux Falls Jefferson, a potential semifinal foe before perhaps another meeting with his future Northern State University teammate Johannsen.
Holden Hawkins, Sisseton
Hawkins, only a sophomore, seems destined to place in the state tourney for the fourth-straight year. He is the No. 2 seed in Class A at 144 pounds with a 43-5 record and actually owns a win over No. 1 seed Jackson Boonstra of Dakota Valley.
Hawkins placed in state B tourneys in the seventh and eighth grades and placed fourth in Class A at 132 last February.
Jaidyn Giedd, Kingsbury County
Giedd, a seventh-grader, is 19-9 and the No. 2 seed in the girls' 138-pound weight class behind the undefeated Hellman. One of Hellman's wins came by fall over Giedd, who has posted three falls combined over the No. 3 and 4 seeds in the weight class.
Gannon Gilligan, Kingsbury County
Gilligan, a junior who is 28-1 at 126 pounds in Class B, starts a run of No. 3-seeded wrestlers on this list.
Despite missing the start of the season, he's been perfect with the exception of a 9-2 loss to No. 2 seed Gavin Braun of Kimball-White Lake/Platte-Geddes. Braun, a past state champion, is looming as a potential semifinal matchup for Gilligan, a two-time state place winner.
Tate Steffensen, Sioux Valley
Steffensen, a junior, is 44-5 and the No. 3 seed in Class B at 132 pounds. He moved up from 120 pounds, where he went 32-12 and placed seventh in state last winter.
A couple of his losses came at 126 pounds and he hasn't meet either the top two seeds in his weight class.
Alex Pudwill, Warner-Northwestern
Pudwill has enjoyed a 41-4 senior season and enters state as the No. 3 Class B seed at 190 pounds. If he wants to go the distance, he'll might need to avenge a 5-2 loss to No. 2 seed Gannon Knebel of Wagner and a loss to by fall to No. 1 seed Parker Noem of Custer.
Pudwill placed seventh at 170 (39-13) as a junior.
Dani Batchelor, Clark-Willow Lake
Batchelor, a senior, is the No. 3 girls' seed at 107 pounds. She went 25-9 as a junior and placed fifth at 113.
Standing in way of her quest for a title at No. 2 seed Sydney Uhrig of Pierre and No. 1 seed Mary-Katherine Joseph of Brandon Valley, who posted wins over Batchelor during the regular season.
Kayden Tchida, Sisseton
The freshman is 30-6 and the No. 3 seed at 113 pounds in Class A. He opened the year at 106 before moving up and has yet to face any the other top four seeds in his weight class.
Brock Eitreim, Watertown
Eitreim has enjoyed a pretty notable high school career with the Arrows that has included a third-place finish and two sixth-place finishes in the state Class A meet.
He's battled some injuries this winter but is still 27-5 and the No. 4 seed at 190. Eitreim lost by fall to No. 1 seed Elijah Schunke of Brandon Valley, who is in his part of the bracket, and fell twice to No. 3 seed Chance Carda of Pierre.
Madyson Gillen, Aberdeen Central
Gillen finished 33-11 and placed sixth at 113 pounds in the girls' state tourney last February and heads to Sioux Falls for her senior tourney with a 35-11 record and the No. 4 seed at 107 pounds.
She has not faced in the other top seeds in her weight class.
Conner Giedd, Kingsbury County
Giedd, a freshman, is 31-2 and the No. 4 seed in Class B boys. His only losses have come to No. 1 seed Hurd and No. 2 seed Jorgenson.
He went 41-7 and placed fifth at 120 pounds while wrestling for Howard in 2022-23.
Brooke Grajczyk, Webster Area
Only an eighth-grader, Grajczyk is looking to place for the second time in the girls' tournament. She went 19-11 and took fifth at 132 pounds last February.
This season, she is 26-6 and the No. 4 seed at 138 and her route to the finals will go through Hellman.
Josh Kannegieter, Clark-Willow Lake
The junior carries a 35-5 record and the No. 4 seed at 175 pounds in Class B into the state tournament. He does have losses to No. 1 seed Burke Blasius of the Badlands Brawlers (Philip-Kadoka Area-Wall) and No. 3 seed Carter Randall of McCook Central-Montrose.
His road to the finals goes through Blasius, who is seeking a fourth state title.
Lilly Nelson, Aberdeen Central
The sophomore is 33-14 and the No. 4 seed at 185 pounds in the girls division. Two of her losses came by fall to Konrad, which she may need to avenge to get to the finals.
Lincoln Dikoff, Faulkton Area
After going 35-11 as a junior and taking eighth at 195 pounds in Class B, Dikoff brings a 35-4 record and the No. 4 seed at 215 into this week's state tourney.
A title run won't be easy, he'd have to avenge a regular-season loss to Jensen Fitch of the Badland Brawlers before even getting a possible shot at No. 1 seed Levi Wieman of Parker (48-0) in the semifinals.
Eden Hach, Watertown
In her first year, Micah's sister has compiled a 28-8 record as a freshman in the girls' 250-pound division. Four of her losses came by fall to No.1 seed Kiara King of Canton, who is in her bracket.
Follow Watertown Public Opinion sports reporter Roger Merriam on X (formerly known as Twitter) @PO_Sports or email: rmerriam@thepublicopinion.com
This article originally appeared on Watertown Public Opinion: Which area wrestlers have best chance to secure state championships
