26 | Saturday, November 22, 2025 Elk River Star News
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Elk River, MN 55330.
Elk wrestling’ s goal: Return to state as a team
Elks made state as a team for the first time since 2003 last winter
ERIK NELSON Sports Reporter
Last season, the Elks wrestling team qualified as a team for state for the first time since 2003, ending a 22-year drought. The Elks hope to return to state as a team during the 2025-26 season.
Head coach: Paul Nelson
Key returning wrestlers: Juniors Mason Freeman, Walker Gaulrapp and Talon Sasse, sophomore Finley Hilyar, and seniors Will Johnson, Wyatt Lease, Ian Lessard, Lars Nelson and Dylan Peters
Key departures: The Elks graduated Jackson
Expectations higher for Royals girls hockey
Winter Sports Preview 2025-26
Winter Sports Preview 2025-26
Ebner, Paul Greenberg, Brayden Hilyar, Zach Hopkins and Xarissa Roper-Hawes.
Coach Nelson’ s expectations for 2025-26:“ I believe we can go back [ to state ], but we need to make it a goal and make it our focus as a team and focus on peaking at the end of the season and navigate our way that way. We’ re concerned with building everybody up, keeping people healthy and continue to develop our wrestlers. We did have a lot of offseason training and had good participation with quite a few wrestlers in the offseason. They did the extra work on their own. They trained and they wrestled in the offseason and they wrestled in tournaments and went to summer camps. That makes a huge difference in regards to how good we’ re going to be. We’ re a year older and a year more mature. We’ re going to miss our six seniors, but now we have to reload and also have to fill in those spots for guys left out, but we have returning wrestlers that can do the job. We’ re excited for them. Everyone’ s excited for the season. We want to continue to develop and get better and see how far we can take this. We’ re looking to be very competitive.”
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SUBMITTED PHOTO
Elks captains Brayden Hilyar, Lars Nelson and Ian Lessard pose with the Section 7-3A championship trophy after clinching a state berth in Feburary 2025. The Elks won the section and clinched a berth in the Class 3A team wrestling tournament for the first time since 2003. The Elks hope to return to state as team in February 2026. Lessard and Nelson return to the 2025-26 squad, while Hilyar graduated.
ERIK NELSON Sports Reporter
The Rogers Royals girls hockey team is heading into the 2025-26 season with a roster that is even younger than last year’ s team. The program still has expectations to compete at a high level this winter.
Head coach: Dan Miller( 1st season)
2024-25 record: 7-19-0( lost to Maple Grove in the Section 5-2A quarterfinal)
Key returning players: Senior defenders Peyton Strombeck and Brynn Bischoff are leaders on the ice and in the locker room.
Key departures: Goalie Claire Kinneberg and defender Sydney Bailey both graduated. Bailey led the Royals in points with 18 last season and is now a freshman defender for the University of Minnesota women’ s hockey team.
Important games: Tuesday, Dec. 9 vs. Elk River; Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026, @ Elk River; Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026 @ Andover; Friday, Jan. 30, 2026 @ Anoka
Coach Miller’ s expectations for 2025-26:“ We’ ve got a lot of depth upfront. We’ re going to be in every game that we play. We had a young roster last year and somehow got younger. We’ re going to push some teams offensively this year. As the year goes on, and we do the right things and we stay the course and looking at what we’ re trying to do step-by-step, by the end of the year we’ re going to be a tough team to compete against.”
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