Three area girls take home wrestling gold, Basile boys capture fifth state championship since ’19
Published 9:15 am Tuesday, February 18, 2025
- South Beauregard's CeCe Buller takes down teammate Sadie Penny during the Jesse James Southwest Shootout on Feb. 1, 2025, at the Sulphur High School ninth grade campus. Buller is the top seed at 126 pounds at the first ever LHSAA girls state wrestling championship this weekend. (Rodrick Anderson / American Press)
CeCe Buller, Sarah Cervenka and Chevy Coleman made history Saturday by becoming the first girls from Southwest Louisiana to win a state championship at the Louisiana High School Athletic Association wrestling tournament in Bossier City.
All three dominated at the first girls state tournament.
Buller, a senior at South Beauregard High School, barely let her opponents breathe, winning four matches in 42 seconds or less by pin. In the 126-pound final, Buller (30-2) pinned No. 2 Isabelle Guillory (East Ascension) in 18 seconds.
Coleman (32-0), a senior at Sam Houston High School, and Cervenka (34-0), a sophomore at South Beauregard, took it a step further and completed undefeated seasons.
Coleman, who finished fifth (2023) and sixth (2024) wrestling against boys, won the 106-pound state title. She pinned all four of her opponents, including No. 3 Lily Velasquez, with 38 seconds left in the first period of the state title match.
Cervenka pinned three opponents before beating Lafayette’s Breisha Charles 18-3 on a technical fall in the 145-pound class.
South Beauregard finished fourth with 113 points, while Baton Rouge won the team title with 190.5 points.
Boys Basile returned to the top of Division III by winning its fifth state championship since 2019. The Bearcats were third last season and runner-up in 2023.
Led by sophomore Logan Bergeron and junior Kye Smith, the Bearcats placed 11 wrestlers in the top six in their respective weight classes. Bergeron (33-6) repeated as the 106-pound champion while Smith (22-6) improved on his third-place finish last season to win the 120-pound title.
Also from Southwest Louisiana, five seniors won their final high school match to finish as state champions. Sam Houston’s Caleb Lavine and South Beauregard’s Bryce Fontenot repeated as state champions. Lavine (69-6) won four matches by pin or technical fall to take the Division II 150-pound title and set the school record for career wins at 212. Fontenot (27-5) took home the Division III 138-pound state title after beating John Curtis Christian’s Abel Halsey 15-0 in the final.
St. Louis Catholic’s Grant Habetz (17-5) won the Division III 144-pound title while South Beauregard’s Ayden Green (23-12) and Blake Butler (37-8) won at 157 and 215 pounds, respectively.
Kyler Dartez (33-12) won the 165-pound title to give the Golden Knights four state champions.