Wrestling 2025: St. Michael-Albertville completes season of dominance

Move over Apple Valley and Forest Lake, there is a new squad and wrestling program to consider among Minnesota’s all-time best.

With a vast wrestling tradition of staggering success that boasts 11 state championships and 11 runner-up finishes, St. Michael-Albertville was already in that conversation, but with the completion of a 2024-2025 season of dominance, the Knights added some fuel to the chatter. 

Top-seeded St. Michael-Albertville left little doubt that Championship No. 12 would be making its way up Interstate 94 from St. Paul when it raced to a 46-18 victory over No. 2 Shakopee in the Class AAA title match of the Minnesota State High School League’s Wrestling State Tournament on Thursday, Feb. 27 at the Xcel Energy Center. 

In routing Shakopee for the second time this season, the Knights completed an unblemished record of 27-0 and the title of Minnesota’s best wrestling team regardless of enrollment classification. 

During the season, the Knights defeated Watertown Mayer-Mayer Lutheran, 30-21, which won the Class AA crown on Thursday. St. Michael-Albertville also defeated Staples-Motley in convincing fashion. Staples-Motley won the Class A title on Thursday as well. 

The victory over Watertown Mayer-Mayer Lutheran was the closest margin any opponent came to the Knights. 

“End to end, this was a dominant year, regardless of how you look at it,” senior 215-pounder Blake Underwood said. “We put so much effort into everything we did, be it practices, matches or anything else in our day-to-day lives, it was filled with purpose. This season is a huge example of what happens when a team is together on a focused mission.”

While Apple Valley has captured a Minnesota high school record 25 state titles, St. Michael-Albertville’s air-tight lineup that features stars at virtually every weight stirred debate as to where it might rank all time. In 1993, Forest Lake won the Class AA championship and had a lineup that won seven individual titles. 

“We are up there in the conversation,” Underwood said. “We’ve got 12 state qualifiers and I’ll bet we come home with six or seven champions. We know what kind of season we had. We will let others decide on where that puts us. I just want people to remember us as a club that had fun, believed in each other and did things the right way.”

St. Michael-Albertville advanced with a 54-9 victory over Albert Lea in the semifinals earlier. The Knights won 11 of the first 12 matches en route to building a staggering 54-5 lead. In that run, STMA had nine matches that earned bonus points. 

Shakopee, meanwhile, edged Stillwater 27-26 in the other semifinal. Senior heavyweight Max Coles provided the winning margin with a 7-4 decision over Stillwater sophomore Andrew Olson. 

Third place: Stillwater, the No. 3 seed to open the tournament, finished that way following a 32-28 victory over No. 4 Albert Lea for the third place trophy. The Ponies turned a four-point deficit into a four-point victory with an eight-point run in the final two weights. Sophomore Gael Spates ignited the final surge with a 7-6 decision over Albert Lea senior Evan Schroeder at 215 and Olson followed with a technical fall victory over junior William Velazuez at heavyweight. 

Consolation: Bemidji rebounded from a quarterfinal loss to Albert Lea with two victories, the second a 40-27 victory over Prior Lake in the consolation final. The Lumberjacks won three of the final four matches, all on bonus points, to build a 40-21 lead with one match remaining. Senior Alec Newby had a pin at 172, followed by a technical fall from senior Kohen Donat at 189 and a pin by sophomore Nehemiah Schwinghammer at 215.