Wrestler takes national title

You can add one more name to the litany of Sandpoint wrestlers who have made a name for themselves at the national level: Anneliese DeAragon.

The senior-to-be recently became a national champion, winning the 153-pound bracket at the Asics USA Wrestling Cadet and Junior Nationals in Fargo, N.D. DeAragon is coached by Bonners Ferry High School wrestling coach Conrad Garner.

DeAragon’s victory was merely the latest strong showing from a wrestler who hopes to someday make the women’s Olympic team.

“Last year I was runner up (at Junior Nationals) and I didn’t want to get second again; that would have been horrible,” said DeAragon, who has her eye on the 2012 Olympics and beyond. “It’s on my radar. I’ll go to the trials, but I’m expecting better things by 2016.”

DeAragon, who wrestled last season for Sandpoint High School, mowed through the bracket to make it into the championship match, where she admittedly lost her cool and promptly fell behind 8-1 to an opponent from Texas after the first period.

Luckily, she received some prudent advice from Garner, quickly turning the tide and pinning her opponent just 22 seconds into the second period.

“I told her to come back to her style of wrestling and take some shots,” described Garner, which DeAragon has been a member of for years. “The girl was really strong and I told Anneliese to attack the legs and get away from the upper body. The girl couldn’t touch her then.”

DeAragon’s mom Pilar and a host of other friends and family were listening to a speaker phone as a friend described the action from every match during the tournament.

“We were all huddled around and it was like listening to the radio,” said Pilar, whose daughter Lily is also a standout wrestler. “We’d all scream when she’d win then sit around and wait for her next match.”

DeAragon’s wrestling exploits have landed her a rare opportunity as one of 10 female wrestlers invited to go to school and train at the United States Olympic Education Center next year at Northern Michigan University. She’s one of four members who will be dually enrolled in high school, and will be rooming and training twice a day with college-age wrestlers.

Along with Olympic-caliber coaching, she’ll get to travel to places like Austria, Sweden, Japan, Cuba and Australia, where she can cut her teeth against some of the best women wrestlers in the world.

“I’m hoping to make it to the Olympics,” she said. “I want to start getting into the senior level and making a name for myself up there.”

Garner, who has coached DeAragon since she was a little kid, believes if she can add some strength and a few more tools, making the Olympic team is a realistic goal.

“Another notch in Sandpoint’s great wrestling history. I just wish she was from Bonners Ferry,” Garner said with a hearty laugh, adding what he finds most special about DeAragon. “Total commitment to the sport.”