2023 Class D State Powerlifting Meet
Launch the media gallery 1 playerThe 2023 Class D High School State Powerlifting Championships were held at Harvard High School this past Saturday, March 25th. It featured 125 lifters representing 12 of the top Class D powerlifting schools in the state. This was the largest Class D state powerlifting meet since 2005. Class D schools represented were Blue Hill, Boyd County, Bruning-Davenport-Shickley, Centura, Fullerton, Harvard, Johnson-Brock, Niobrara-Verdigre, Red Cloud, Riverside, Silver Lake, and Summerland. The Niobrara-Verdigre Cougar lifters came away with the high school boys, girls, and co-ed team championship trophies!
All Cougar lifters had impressive performances with many personal bests set again. We also had four more Cougar boys team records broken. Gunnar Shabram broke his own record in the squat (390 lbs), bench press (260 lbs), and total (1100 lbs). Lorenzo Denny broke his own record for lifting gain in one season (180 lbs). And Isaac Pavlik is now only 20 lbs away from 1000 lbs total! Congratulations to all lifters and teams on a fine performance. Thank you for your outstanding behavior while representing our schools and for showing a lot of class towards all competitors. Thank you also for your respect shown towards all meet officials. Everyone appreciates it!
The top 3 boys teams… 1st place Niobrara-Verdigre (50 points); 2nd place Riverside; 3rd place Centura.
The top 3 girls teams… 1st place Niobrara-Verdigre (80 points); 2nd place Silver Lake; 3rd place Boyd County.
The top Co-ed teams (a mix of the top boys and girls lifters)… 1st place Niobrara-Verdigre (94 points); 2nd place Fullerton; 3rd place Silver Lake.
Niobrara-Verdigre had a total of 8 individual state champions in their respective weight classes; 4 earning silver medals; 3 earning bronze medals; 3 earning fourth place medals, and 2 earning a fifth place medal.
Boys individual state champions were Danny Pease (114 lb class) and Gunnar Shabram (242 lb class). Westin Bauer (148 lb class), Isaac Pavlik (220 lb class), and Gavin Rardon (275+ lb class) were silver medalists. Lorenzo Denny (275+ lb class) earned a bronze medal. Cody Wickersham (148 lb class) earned a fourth place medal, and Wyatt Shabram (132 lb class) earned a fifth place medal. Other lifters that JUST MISSED OUT on medaling were Jase Kotrous, Coy Wickersham, & Cash Wickersham in the extremely deep 165 lb class along with Jordon Ingebo (181 lb class) and Dylan Davidson (198 lb class).
Girls individual state champions were Gwen Bonham (97 lb class), Melody Bonham (105 lb class), Billie Pritchett (123 lb class), Chelsey Rohrer (165 lb class), Anna Rudloff (181 lb class), and Gabrielle Pavlik (198 lb class). Raquel Morales-Montalvo (198+ lb class) was a silver medalist. RaeLynne Nelson (181 lb class) and Taylor Pavlik (198 lb class) were bronze medalists. Kami Simons (148 lb class) and Olivia Holz (198+ lb class) earned fourth place medals. Heidi Hollmann (148 lb class) was a fifth place medalist. Taylor Teadtke (148 lb class) finished in sixth place. Congratulations to all individual lifters. You are all to be commended for your high ranking in the state meet!
The season isn’t over quite yet! The final meet of the school year will be the Orchard AAU Powerlifting Meet this Saturday, April 1st at the Orchard School gym. Because this is a sanctioned AAU event, the talents of both the high school and middle school Niobrara-Verdigre girls and boys lifters will be on display along with many other lifters from across the midwest including numerous adult professional lifters. This meet has grown into one of the largest sanctioned meets in the state over the past 15 years seeing numerous State, American, and World records set each year… hopefully we can have an amazing performance this year. There are over 160 registered lifters, so the Orchard gym will be rocking Saturday! Lifting begins at 9:00 am. GO COUGARS!
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