Over 1,200 wrestlers set to compete in Black Hills Nationals Tournament: There’s still time to enter

SPEARFISH, S.D. – The state high school wrestling tournament was held last month in Rapid City.

But for many, the wrestling season isn’t quite over just yet.

The 19th Annual Black Hills Nationals Wrestling Tournament will take place on Friday and Saturday, March 17-18 in Spearfish.

Final preparations are underway at the Young Center on the campus of Black Hills State University.

The tournament kicks off Friday with the first session at 3 p.m. and wraps up on Saturday.

Tournament founder and director, Frank Pavich, says nearly 13 hundred wrestlers from over 20 different states have already registered for the event.

The tournament features several different divisions from 6 and under all the way to 30 and up.

Online entries are now close. But you can still walk into weigh-ins and register between 9 a.m. and 12 p.m. on Friday, March 17 at BHSU in Spearfish.

For more more information on the tournament, click here.

“If you want to see a real entertaining division, come Friday night for the masters and the seniors,” said BH Nationals Director Frank Pavich. “That’s everybody, seniors are 19 to 29 year old’s and masters are 30 year plus. So we have people coming by the van  loads. It’s really exploded this year. We’re going to have a lot of masters. We’re going to have a lot of seniors and it’s an entertaining division.” 

“We like to create these opportunities for kids,” said BH Nationals Assistant Director Paul Soriano. “Whether they’re little tots all the way up to masters division in wrestling, we like to take care of those people and provide those opportunities. For community, we like to help the Spearfish community by having all these people come in. We’ll probably have 1,500 wrestlers.”