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Crimson Bears grapplers set to take down new season
Largest wrestling roster to date has promising boys, girls team title hopes
By Klas Stolpe
Juneau Independent
The Juneau Wrestling Center, the practice facility for the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé wrestling team, is now officially crowded.
“It is elbow to elbow,” JDHS coach Adam Messmer said as the Crimson Bears moved through practice warmups on Tuesday. “The room is getting smaller, but that is a good thing.”
The Crimson Bears have over 70 grapplers signed up for the 2026-27 season.
“And we have 20 girls this season,” Messmer said. “Enough for a girls team. That is pretty exciting. This weekend we send a team to Houston and another to Haines. And for our home tournament next weekend (Oct. 23-24) we have Dimond coming down and they are bringing close to 30 wrestlers. And Mt. Edgecumbe will bring a full girls team. Plus all the Southeast schools will be coming also. We will have close to 300 wrestlers, that is a big tournament.”
JDHS won the Region V boys title last season with 29 podium finishes, including 11 Region V champions. They took 22 grapplers to the state championships.
“Work ethic is the main thing I, and everybody else in the room, needs to improve on and that we are improving on,” JDHS senior co-captain Jed Davis said. Davis won the 152-pound Region V title last season and placed fourth at state. “More sweat in the room, people trying harder. I think this year, as a captain, I can bring that forward. The team looks really good this year in general. We didn’t lose too much great talent last year and I like that we have freshmen that are bringing what they have to the mat.”
Davis remembered his freshman season and compared that to his charges this season.
“It is a developmental year for sure,” he said. “It is one of the most important ones. You are building the base of your high school career off of that. It is really important to work as hard as you can in the room and you can exponentially grow from there throughout the rest of your years.”
Senior co-captain Camden Messmer won the Region V 125-pound title last season.
He placed fourth at the 2023 state championships as a freshman at Thunder Mountain (112 pounds), fourth in state in 2024 for JDHS (119 pounds) and fifth last season.
“I am bringing a lot of determination into the room this season,” C. Messmer said. “I really want to win state this year, but I really want to coach a lot more this year too. Help out the younger kids more before I go. I remember being a freshman, it was hard because when I came in we didn’t have many seniors really. I kind of see myself in some of the younger freshmen. I hope to teach them that it is okay to lose a match, I mean, it is their freshman year. The first year of high school is big. Just because you don’t do as good as you want in your freshman year, you are still going to have three more years to improve and do better. The determination to do better is important in a sport no matter the outcome. I will always have the determination to do better because I love the sport.”
Senior co-captain Landyn Dunn placed fifth at state his freshman season and had both his sophomore and junior seasons cut short with injury after strong starts.
“Last season I was really stuck on the bottom in some matches,” Dunn said. “This year I have been acting like a sponge. I have been taking all this new information in. Even though I have been wrestling my whole life I can still learn more things. That is my biggest jump from last year to this season. It is a good feeling when you learn something new and hopefully I learn all of it. I just want to leave the younger guys with something that they are going to use in matches. I can give them all this information, but if they are not actually going to use it, then I have to try harder to show them. Just incorporating stuff that they can use in matches later on.”
Davis, Messmer, and Dunn were also captains last season. They are joined this season by senior co-captain Max Webster, senior co-captain Felix Hesson and junior co-captain Nixie Schooler. Captains are role models, lead practices, and provide their insights and suggestions to coaches after practices and matches.
Webster won the 135-pound Region V title last season.
“Last year I started seeing some success after several years of hard work,” Webster said. “Really grinding in the sport. I hope to continue working hard and seeing more success this year. Being a captain I hope I can show younger wrestlers the example of working hard, but more than that, they can have a respectful attitude to their teammates. And I can model and encourage respectful attitudes overall.”
Other Region V returning champions include sophomore Landon Hill (119 pounds), who placed third at state, senior Jaxin Jim (189 pounds), junior Joshua Beedle (130 pounds), junior Sean Fairchild (285 pounds), and sophomore Jayden Frickey (103 pounds). JDHS region champions who graduated last year include Alex Marx-Beierly (4th at state), Marlin Cox (145 pounds) and Oliver Abel (140 pounds).
For the girls team, JDHS junior Nixie Schooler has won back-to-back region titles. She placed second at state last season (107 pounds) and third in 2024 (107 pounds).
JDHS sophomore Madelyn Dale won regions (114 pounds) and placed sixth at state. Sophomore Ciara Dutton placed second at regions (138 pounds) and lost during the state tournament to eventual runner-up Helena Slats of MEHS.
JDHS sophomore Fiona McFarlin (107 pounds) placed third in regions and lost at state to Student Wrestling Development Program’s state champion Jade Sherry in the early rounds. Sherry took the title over Schooler. Returning juniors Sunny Dutton (120 pounds) and Lacie Whitehead (120 pounds) had solid region outings.
The Crimson Bears girls received an added boost with the addition of junior Harlee Brown, Hoonah’s back-to-back region champion (145 pounds). Freshman Leighton Hall (114 pounds) won the middle school Tanana State Tournament last season.
“The girls team will be exciting,” Coach Messmer said. “Mt. Edgecumbe always has the numbers and can fill the weight classes. I think we have enough to give them a run for the money this year. We have some strong freshmen coming up. I think they will have a steep learning curve when wrestling seniors, but I think they will handle it just fine. We have a good camaraderie in the room with the girls and the boys. Everybody is looking out for each other.”
Mt. Edgecumbe won the girls region title last season, followed by Ketchikan and Wrangell. JDHS finished fourth, but its roster now makes the Crimson Bears titleworthy. All girls teams wrestle in one division. Soldotna won the girls state title with Wasilla second, Colony third and SWDP fourth. MEHS placed 11th, Ketchikan 15th, JDHS 16th and Wrangell 18th.
The boys Division I teams are JDHS and Ketchikan, all other Southeast boys teams wrestle DII at the region and state tournaments.
Returning JDHS boys region placers include sophomore Matthew Shockley (2nd 112 pounds, 5th at state), senior Elliot Klinger (2nd 152 pounds), sophomore Hendrik Van Kirk (2nd 135 pounds), junior Hugo Rank (2nd 189 pounds), senior Felix Hesson (2nd 130 pounds), sophomore William Hulson (2nd 119 pounds), junior Carson Kautz (3rd 112 pounds), senior Sam Buttner (3rd 171 pounds), senior Gage Keller (3rd 145 pounds), senior Tristen Ridgeway (3rd 125 pounds), sophomore Beckham Selvig-Baker (3rd 130 pounds), junior Caleb Aube (4th 140 pounds), junior Michael Carson (4th 125 pounds), junior Brody Vavalis (4th 171 pounds), senior Tyler Garrison (4th 130 pounds), and sophomore Caleb Demmert challenged (140 pounds).
“Some of our returning wrestlers have grown,” coach Messmer mused. “So jumping up weight brackets can be an interesting test for them, but they will be up for it.”
The JDHS boys placed fifth at last season’s DI State Championships among 19 teams. They trailed champion SWDP of Fairbanks, runner-up Soldotna, third-place South Anchorage and fourth-place Colony. Ketchikan placed 12th. Wrangell won the DII region title and their first-ever state title, followed by Kenai, Mountain City Christian Academy and Dillingham. MEHS placed 11th, Haines 12th and Sitka 13th.
“Right now we have some talented kids that have returned,” coach Messmer said. “We had some kids in the room all summer and have been doing preseason since the middle of August. The season practices start with extreme conditioning. But we also have a lot of freshmen and some new kids. So we started the season with a lot of review. We split the room up a little bit so some are learning the basics and some the more advanced stuff. Trying to get in shape for that first match is difficult. You can think you are in shape, but then you find out what six minutes of hard wrestling is all about. Once we get to this weekend it is about getting as many matches as possible, looking at what everybody else is doing and adapting to that, and seeing where our weaknesses are.”
JDHS will split into two travel teams this weekend. One group will compete at the Houston Altercation Wrestling Tournament at Wasilla’s Houston High School against teams usually only seen at the state tournament. The other group will compete at the Haines Invitational with smaller southeast schools.
Most of the Region V schools will gather in Juneau for the Southeast Shakedown at JDHS’ George Houston Gymnasium, Friday and Saturday, Oct. 23-24. The gathering of close to 300 grapplers will include Anchorage’s Dimond High School. The Lynx will also compete in a dual meet with the Crimson Bears on Thursday, Oct. 22 and the JDHS girls will duel that Thursday with the MEHS girls team.
On Oct. 30-31, the JDHS boys wrestle at South Anchorage’s Monster Bash and the girls wrestle at Anchorage’s Mountain City Christian Academy Invitational. Both JDHS teams travel to Ketchikan’s Bill Weiss Invitational Nov. 6-7; Palmer’s Lancer Smith Memorial Wrestling Tournament, Nov. 13-14; Petersburg Invitational, Nov. 20-21; and the Sitka Invitational, Dec. 4-5. The Region V tournament is at Wrangell Dec. 11-12. State is at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center Dec. 18-19.
JDHS assistant coaches are Jason Hass and Dan Ondrejka, and volunteer coaches include Alonzo Leisholmn, Gary Reed, Kadin Messmer and Pete Hulson.
“We preach family,” Coach Messmer said. “We are a family. We are in here sweating and, literally, bleeding for each other to make each other tougher. When we are at tournaments, we are basically going into hostile territory where the whole town is cheering against you. We are our biggest cheerleaders and fans. We are at the edge of the mat for our teammates, cheering them on. It is not all physical ability, a lot of it is mental. And cheering can turn a match. These kids grind. They would run through a brick wall if we asked them to.”
Following are the JDHS wrestling team rosters with their certified weight. To be compliant with Alaska School Activities Association guidelines, and entry into USA Wrestling bracketing, wrestlers have physicals by healthcare providers to determine a weight they cannot wrestle lower than. Those weights are in parentheses if available.
The boys roster includes:
Seniors - Samuel Buttner (171), Jed Davis (145), Landyn Dunn (140), Isaiah Galletes-Fale, Tyler Garrison (130), Felix Hesson (130), Jaeger Hubert, Jaxin Jim, Gage Keller (140), Camden Messmer (130), Tyler Oudekerk, Tristan Ridgeway (119), Ethan Van Kirk, and Joseph Max Webster (130).
Juniors - Caleb Aube, Joshua Beedle (140), Michael Carson (135), Sean Fairchild, Carson Kautz (119), Jonah Lane, Hugo Rank (189), and Brody Vavalis (171).
Sophomores - Luke Darbonne (135), Caleb Demmert, Jayden Frickey (119), Landon Hill (130), William Hulson (145), Jack Pegues (130), Brooks Pinney (140), Maddox Scott (119), Matthew Shockley (119), and Hendrik Van Kirk.
Freshmen - Logan Apango (135), Rawley Cox (103), Paul Drake, Aaro Eckerson, Andrew Erickson (130), Tanner Freebury (103), Olin Haffner, Wyatt Hickok (130), Raiden Johnson-Katzeek (145), Lee Kadinger Jr. (152), Matvii Kozodoi (125), William Lansing (160), Luke Miller (130), Koji Rank (152), Boe Reigard, Logan Sivertsen (103), Finn Troutman (103), and Vance Tupou.
The girls roster includes:
Juniors - Harlee Brown (138), Sunny Dutton (126), Keira Jenkins (152), Toriana Johnson (126), Laura Parker (120), Nixie Schooler (107), Destiny Su’a, Lacie Whitehead (120), and Reagan Wolfe (145).
Sophomores - Adriana Blanton, Madelyn Dale (120), Ciara Dutton (145, Alea Faatoia (185), Pheobie Martin (165), Fiona McFarlin (100), and Clara Van Kirk (120).
Freshmen - Leighton Hall (114), Feangai Ny Kivalu (138), Minali Reid (120), and Sinira Tomanogi.
• Contact Klas Stolpe at sports@juneauindependent.com
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