From not placing at all to the best at 125 pounds for girls wrestling, Ridgefield’s Lillian Hulegaard is riding high on her junior campaign with a huge tournament finals win in the 2026 Braided 64 Kelso Girls’ Invite wrestling tournament.
Hulegaard wrestled her most difficult match of the season in order to add a huge, crucial medal to her high school wrestling career on Saturday, Jan. 10. Hulegaard pinned Rogers’ (Puyallup) Lindy Strowbridge in the third round after taking a 12-10 lead with a reversal.
“It was definitely the hardest match this year for me,” she said. “I think that it kind of pushed me out of my comfort zone. Like, she was comfortable in a lot of the ties that I’m usually comfortable with. So when it came to my go-tos and stuff, it was a little bit harder to get to.”
Hulegaard added that she is excited to watch the match again in order to critique herself and continue to improve after the big win under the domed light in Kelso High School.
The Braided 64 tournament began with 911 girls competing. Once the finals were set, 28 were left. With the crossover of classifications and the mix of competitors from Washington and Oregon, the title matches can sometimes end up being tougher contests than a state championship.
Hulegaard said she will be aiming for All-American this year. As the wrestling season doesn’t stop, she plugs away all year from folkstyle wrestling into freestyle. One big key to Hulegaard’s success is from the efforts of her coaches to continue to grow the Ridgefield girls’ program.
Her dad, Jestin Hulegaard, is an assistant coach for the program. He’s also a storied collegiate wrestler. Jestin Hulegaard was inducted into the NCAA Division III Buena Vista University Athletics Hall of Fame as a four-time All-American at 133 pounds and placed in the top five of the NCAA DIII Tournament in three of his four years of competition.
Jestin Hulegaard is thrilled with the Spudders as a whole.
“We keep as a program doing better every year, and we had two placers this year. A couple of girls fell a little bit short, you know,” he said. “But I’m really excited about how they performed.”
Ridgefield’s Nicolette Hulse placed eighth overall at 145 pounds to add to the Spudders’ success in the tournament.
Head coach Kyle Simmons said he is excited with his team’s growth this season.
“We’ve got a good group of girls here at Ridgefield, and all of them are buying into what we’re telling them and putting in the work to get better, and it’s just week in and week out, we just keep seeing improvements from top to bottom of the lineup,” Simmons said. “So I’m super excited to see them work toward this end goal and just learn something every week, and we go out there and put it on the line and test what we’ve learned and see how we can get better.”
La Center High School freshman Audrey Lensegrav earned a title bid as well, finishing in second place at 105 pounds. Lensegrav’s title match proved to be a glimpse of the best of Oregon versus the best of Washington at 105 pounds as Lensegrav was defeated by Rainier (Oregon) High School’s Kiya Rose.
