Meeting at the Mat

The Polson High School wrestling coaches’ philosophy is to “develop servant leaders in life and build a strong culture.” During their previous season, the girls’ wrestling team lost senior leaders, necessitating other girls stepping up. Junior Ciri Nice said,  “the team dynamic was really good this year. ”  

The PHS girls wrestling team started their season with the Owen Invitational, hosted in Polson. The meet lasted two full days, beginning on December 6 and wrapping up on December 7, 2024. By the end of the meet, five girls placed first in their weight class: juniors Ciri Nice, Skyla Nielsen, Avari Stone, and Venessa Wheeler as well as senior Abigail Sorrell. Junior Ariella Mihara placed 2nd in her weight class, junior Shyloh Huffine placed 6th, and junior Cheyenne Blake placed 4th. Ciri Nice remembers feeling ecstatic after she won her first match during the meet. 

Later the team traveled to the Flathead Invite on December 14 in Kalispell and the George Wild tournament on December 20 and 21 in Kellogg, Idaho. During the Flathead tournament both Cheyenne Blake and Abigail Sorrell placed top 6 in their weight classes. When the team traveled to Idaho for the George Wild competition, they went up against 28 other teams and they managed to place third with only one point away from second place. During the meet, Sorrell won first place in her weight class.  Sorrell remembers wrestling a girl that was “about 50 pounds heavier than me.” The girl had placed 3rd at state the previous year. Sorrell won the match and pinned her opponent in the third period. Other top placers from the meet include juniors Ciri Nice, Avari Stone, and Venessa Wheeler, who all placed 3rd in their weight classes, as well as Skyla Nielsen, who placed 2nd. 

While most teams with this much success have big rituals to hype them up for matches, the Polson girls are calm and collected before stepping on the mat. They meet with their coaches and do a simple cheer before running off to wrestle. To start off the new year, the girls traveled to Ronan to compete in the Western Montana Invite on January 6 and 7. The long standing rivalry between Polson and Ronan is no secret, so there was more energy and excitement going into this meet. Head coach Eric Huffine said, “I loved the energy in the room, and was tickled to death by the efforts put forth by the girls.” The team worked hard the whole meet to secure their 2nd place overall finish. Individually they had two 1st place finishers: Abigail Sorrell and Venessa Wheeler. All three juniors–Avari Stone, Ciri Nice, and Ariella Mihara–placed 2nd in their classes. The girls continued their high scores through the rest of the season. During the Hellgate Invitational on January 18, Avari Stone and Abigail Sorrell placed in the top 3. Leading into divisionals, the Polson High School girls’ wrestling team was ranked 5th in the class A division of Montana. 

On Friday, February 7, the girls traveled to Browning to compete in the Western-A divisionals competition which qualified them for state. The girls wrestled hard during the two day competition and took 3rd place overall, with all of the girls individually placing and eight out of nine of them qualifying for state. Both Ciri Nice and Abigail Sorrell, took first place in their weight classes while Avari Stone took 2nd, Graci Hammer took 4th, Ariella Mihara took 5th, Shyloh Huffine took 2nd, Skyla Nielsen took 4th, Piper Adams took 3rd, and Venessa Wheeler took 2nd. All but one of these girls headed to state on February 12 in Billings, Montana. Nice said, “I’m excited for state, and as a team, we’ve improved so much over the past year.” 

The team headed to the state tournament in Billings on February 13th 2025. Both Ciri Nice and Venessa Wheeler were one match from placing. Abigail Sorrell placed fourth overall. She is the highest placing girl that Polson Wrestling has seen. son.