The section tournament was on Saturday, Feb. 24, in Windom, where wrestlers gave it everything in hopes of finding themselves wrestling at the state tournament. The team had three wrestlers go to the state tournament, and Kevin Briggs was chosen as section 3AA head coach of the year.

Briggs said, “The section individual tournament kinda played out as expected as far as the seeds go and that doesn’t always happen. We had kids place higher, we had kids place lower, but to get 3 kids to the state tournament that’s quite an accomplishment in our section.”

Briggs took the head coach position in the 2019-20 season when his team broke the duel win record with 23 wins. Throughout the 2023-24 season, Briggs led the team through 25 wins setting the school record once again. With that, New Ulm Area earned a spot at “lean and mean” on the Guillotine rankings and finished as conference runner-up with three wrestlers participating in the state tournament being the fourth year in a row that Briggs brought 3 or more wrestlers to the tournament.

Briggs said. “I think that the things I am most proud of are some of the things that don’t get all the glory. I believe I have a really good group of kids with high character and morals,good teammates and I am blessed with a full lineup and able to go out and put a solid team on the mat every night.”

When coaching, Briggs does his best to teach high character and to turn his wrestlers into leaders. He says he wants his team to be “leaders of the next generation” and he does this by coaching his team to lead by example. Briggs went through the season facing obstacles and difficulties like finding out what lineup would perform the best and persevere with injured wrestlers. Through these challenges, Briggs had a team he was proud of at the end of the year. Briggs hopes to lead the wrestling team through the foreseeable future. Briggs hopes to take his team to the next level to hopefully reach his goal of winning the 3AA section.

Briggs said, “This season was truly a record-setting season. We had kids break records, we had kids join exclusive clubs like the 20-pin club and the 30-win club. We set a school record of 25 wins. It was a great year obviously when you have a team this good the goal is obviously to go to state and that didn’t happen but I wouldn’t look at this team as a disappointment, I would look at this team as a step in the right direction and a good season.”