Roberts to join Geiser at state wrestling tournament

By Chad Koenen

Publisher

For a program with as much history and success as the New York Mills wrestling team, an Eagle wrestler is in pretty rare company if they manage to do something that has never been accomplished in the past.

For Shauna Geiser, that meant blazing a trail through the section wrestling tournament and becoming the first female wrestler in NY Mills School history to advance to the state wrestling tournament. In some ways, it wouldn’t have seemed quite right if one of the families with such a rich history of wrestling in NY Mills didn’t have a hand in becoming the first female wrestler to advance to state. Meanwhile, her dad and head girls wrestling coach Dustin Geiser watched nearby from the mat.

“We were both really happy,” said Shauna of both herself and her dad when she won her true second match to qualify for state. “In the moment I was a bit star struck (after winning her match).”

Heading into one of the more competitive weight classes in Section 6, Geiser said her goal heading into the tournament was to simply win a few matches to qualify for the second day of the two-day tournament. After picking up a pair of pins in the opening round by just 23 seconds and 44 seconds, the NY Mills freshman set her sights a little higher heading into the final day of the tournament. 

“My first goal was to make it to the second day. After I completed that goal, I set a goal of making it to state,” she said. 

With all of the female wrestlers from across the state competing in a one-class system, Geiser defeated Ava Molter of Otter Tail Central in the semi-finals to set up a match up against Teagan Erickson of Spectrum, a Class AA school from Elk River. Geiser dropped the championship match by a major decision to set up a true second match against Maria Januszewski of Wadena-Deer Creek. 

Fortunately for the NY Mills wrestler, she was able to secure her fourth pin of the section tournament, this time at the 3:59 mark of the match, and secured the program’s first-ever state tournament berth by a female wrestler. 

Heading into the state tournament, Geiser has an impressive record of 27-12 overall and will compete for the first time on Thursday morning at Grand Casino Arena, formerly Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. The state tournament will continue on Friday and wrap up on Saturday evening. 

As she gets ready for her first-ever state tournament, Geiser said she is looking forward to showing that wrestlers from small schools can compete with people from the big metro area schools.

“I just want to show people that girls can do it, especially since I am from a small town and small town schools can do it,” she said.

Now in her second year of wrestling for the Eagles, Geiser said she enjoys the people she has met in wrestling and how the sport has shown her how to continue pushing herself to get better on the mat.

“I like the people and I like seeing how far I can push myself. It is my family’s sport so I am surrounded by my family,” she said.