Unalaska, AK – The Unalaska Raiders Wrestling Team is sending eight wrestlers to the state championships this year. The team came in third during the regional championship in Bethel on Friday. Team co-captain Levi Vernon said they were blown away by the results. "It was an amazing thing to happen because we never had this many people going to state before. I was usually three guys, like last year, but now it's like eight. So it was a really big deal for us."

Co-captain Zac Call said that raising enough money to bring the entire team of 14 wrestlers to the meet in Bethel helped their overall score because more wrestlers participated to earn points.

Vernon said it helped their spirits as well. "Yeah, cause you know, it gets us fired up and get ready to go. Since we're taking everybody, it's like everybody improved on the team. Everybody was doing good. They're all going to state."

Vernon came in third in his weight class. Call came in first. It will be the first time both seniors made it to state. Sophomore Danrick Trinidad brought home the regional heavy weight title. It was his first time wrestling outside of Unalaska. "My first official match, it was kind of weird. It's like there's so much pressure on me and it's like I'd never wrestled before. There's so much to do. And when I wrestled it was like, Oh, this feels like I've been wrestling forever and it's not so different than wrestling people on my team.'"

Overall the team had one first place win, three third place finishers, four took fourth place, one took fifth, and another sixth. Only the top four in each weight class moves on to state. All but one Unalaska wrestler pinned at least one of their opponents.

Their team point score was 146. Bethel's team took first with 488.5 points. They had twice the number of wrestlers than Unalaska. Dillingham took second overall with 322.5 points.

The wrestlers will travel with their coaches to Nikiski on Wednesday for the state championships.