Spencer, Ia (Northwest Iowa Now) – With the 2024-2025 Iowa High School Sports season winding down, we continue our series of the best teams from the past sports year in the KICD 9-County Area.

We now go to the winter sports where we start out with Girls Wrestling.

Since before the sanctioning of Girls Wrestling in the State of Iowa, Spencer has established themselves as one of the most competitive programs in the State. 2024-2025 brought even more evolving for the Girls Sport with the State Tournament being divided up into two classes.

The Tigers placed 8th at State in 2023-2024, and graduated a few key pieces, but the expectations remained high.

Much of the season for Spencer was plagued by a mixture of injuries and absences. Those missing wrestlers showed up the most in Duals, as the Tigers had to absorb several forfeit losses in the lineup.

Spencer established themselves as a strong Tournament team otherwise though, taking 5th to start the Tournament season in the Ridge View Girls Wrestling Invitational, a Tournament that brought in 21 teams including a host of ranked schools like Lewis Central, Logan-Magnolia, SWAT, and of course the hosts, Ridge View.

The Triton Clash, a highly competitive dual meet in Fort Dodge, saw Spencer take 10th of 16, once again plagued by their empty slots on the roster.

After taking going 5-1 in some dual meets over the next week, The Tigers put together a strong dual Tournament in Council Bluffs hosted by Lewis Central, taking 2nd of 5 teams, and turned in an impressive 2nd place finish at the Kuemper Girls Tournament.

The biggest Tournament test yet was the Ogden Varsity Girls Tournament where some of the best teams in Iowa were attending. Out of the 27 competing teams, Spencer finished 4th, beating some schools like Algona and Ridge View that had finished ahead of the Tigers in other Tournaments.

The rest of the season would be up and down for the Tigers, going 5-2 in Duals, winning the ESC Varsity Girls Tournament, and taking 8th at the Massive Upper Iowa Invitational in Mason City.

Spencer was assigned to the IGHSAU 2A Region 1 Tournament in Ames where the Tigers dominated.

Kira Ruiz at 100, Madison Stickrod at 105, Breanna Johnson at 125, Kyiah Logan at 130, Shaylee Sutherland at 140 and Bailey Schuster at 155 all won individual Titles and Spencer cruised to a dominant 1st place finish, 50.5 points in front of 2nd place Ames.

9 Wrestlers in all qualified for the State Tournament from Spencer, as the Tigers looked to make a dent in the 2A Wrestling Tournament at Coralville’s Xtream Arena.

The State Tournament brought some ups and downs for Spencer, but some battles throughout were very impressive. Both Bre Johnson and Madison Stickrod had to put together some strong runs on the back side of the Bracket to lock up spots on the podium, each taking 8th.

Kiara Ruiz launched out of the 1st round, pinned her first two opponents to guarantee a spot on the podium with a front side semifinal run. After dropping her next two matches, Ruiz bounced back with an exciting win by Fall in the 5th place match.

Returning State Runner-Up Shaylee Sutherland pinned her way into the finals, but couldn’t overcome Hayden Bratland of Ankeny in the Championship, placing 2nd.

The Tigers 60 points were good for a tie at 9th with Prairie of Cedar Rapids. Racoon River-Northwest was the State Champion, Ankeny took 2nd, and Cedar Falls 3rd.

Spencer still returns a strong crop of wrestlers in 2025-2026 and brings some back from injury who are expected to do a lot of damage as well.