The Daphne girls’ wrestling team secured its fifth top-two finish at the AHSAA state championships in as many seasons behind four individual champions and two more runners-up.

The Trojans became the first team to win a Red Map trophy from the Class 6A-7A division now that girls’ wrestling is a sanctioned championship sport by the Alabama High School Athletic Association. Daphne’s 136 points trailed only Thompson’s 150 to complement a state runner-up finish in 2023. The Trojans won state titles in 2021, 2022 and 2024 as the sport grew from emerging status to championship sanctioning.

Daphne senior and Mount Olive signee Kalyse Hill closed her high school career as a four-time state champion after she won the 126-pound division with an 11-1 major decision victory over Rin Curtis from Bob Jones. Hill won the 134-pound division in 2022 then claimed consecutive titles for the Trojans in the 132-pound division in 2023 and 2024. She finished this season with a 41-1 overall record.

McKenzie Nguyen (107), Kimber Alford (132) and Taliah Wade (165) also returned to Daphne with gold medals from their brackets as Alanah Girard (100) and Bella Harris (145) took home silver medals with state runner-up finishes. Nguyen and Alford avenged championship match losses from last year and added a gold medal from 2025 to go along with silvers from 2024.

Daphne, Foley athletes shine in Class 7A boys’ tournament

The Trojan boys’ team was led by senior Toby Hymel who earned a silver medal as state runner-up in the 150-pound division to help Daphne record its first-ever top-10 finish at the Class 7A state tournament.

Clayton Williams (5th in 157) and Micah Swiger (6th in 113) joined Hymel in representing the Trojans with podium finishes. Levi Hoots (175), Colton Rainer (190) and Marquaes Lambert (285) scored points in their divisions to help Daphne rack up 55 points and finish 10th in its classification.

Also on the Class 7A stage, Roman Morgan represented Foley with a fifth-place finish in the 150-pound division. A pin 3:18 into the fifth-place match against Oak Mountain’s Brady Coggin secured Morgan as the first freshman to place at the state meet in Lion wrestling history.

Dolphins do it big on both sides

Gulf Shores also had multiple podium finishers from both teams as the Dolphin girls’ squad tied for fifth in Class 6A-7A and the boys’ team finished fourth in Class 6A.

Khloe Henshaw retained the 235-pound state title for Gulf Shores after Tia Titi became the program’s first-ever state champion last season. Henshaw pinned all three of her opponents en route to the gold medal where Thompson’s Gissell Trejo fell at 1:33 in the final match.

Ryleah Gleber’s bronze medal from the 120-pound division and Leah Guthrie’s fourth-place finish from the 132-pound division complemented Henshaw’s performance and helped the Dolphins register 50 points in the team competition. Gulf Shores finished in a tie alongside Central-Phenix City. 

On the boys’ side, Charles Knight (157) and Abel Brantley (106) led the way for the Dolphins with silver medals from state runner-up finishes in their divisions.

Joaquin Salas represented Gulf Shores with a third-place finish in the 150-pound division as Rhys Coulter (120), Nevin Claypool (138) and Landon Everett (215) all logged fourth-place finishes. Hayden Cook (126) and Weston Reed (165) both earned sixth place to help the Dolphins record 120.5 points for fourth place in Class 6A. Athens won the classification with 146 points.

More hardware to the Eastern Shore

More hardware returned to the Eastern Shore thanks to athletes from Bayside Academy and Spanish Fort.

Noah Breeland represented the Admirals as the 215-pound state runner-up in the Class 1A-4A bracket. He won his quarterfinal (2-0) and semifinal (8-3) matches by decision then fell by major decision to Tallassee’s Nolan Addeo. Ben Swindle joined Breeland on the podium when he finished fifth in the 132-pound division thanks to a 15-9 decision win over Aiden Bridgman from Tallassee.

Joseph Apps collected a bronze medal in Class 6A’s 215-pound division after he avenged a quarterfinal loss to Gulf Shores’ Everett.

Apps won the first round with a 1:09 pin then fell by decision to Everett, last year’s Class 5A 190-pound state champion. From the consolation bracket, Apps used two pins and a decision win to reach the third-place match where he once again drew Everett. This time, however, Apps delivered a 9-5 decision victory to seal a bronze medal for the Toros.

Baldwin County’s Vinson, St. Michael’s Patterson add state placements

Jamie Vinson, the Baldwin County Tigers’ lone representative in the girls’ state tournament, wrestled her way to fourth place in the 138-pound division of the large-school classification.

Vinson earned a decision win in the quarterfinal before she was pinned by eventual champion Evelyn Holmes-Smith from Enterprise in the semifinals. Vinson earned a spot in the third-place match with a 1:24 pin of Jayda Jordan from Huntsville in the consolation semifinals. Jessica Cook from Sparkman then walked away with the bronze medal following a technical fall.

Chase Patterson made history for a young St. Michael program as the first state placer with an eighth-place spot in the 157-pound division of the 1A-4A bracket.

Patterson opened with a 4:44 fall of Tate Martin from Satsuma before he was pinned in the quarterfinals and sent to the consolation bracket. From there, Patterson used a 4:26 fall over Deshler’s Joshua Hawkins to secure a spot in the seventh-place match and lock in a podium finish for the first time in Cardinal history. Sam Crosby became the program’s first state qualifier last year in the school’s inaugural season.