No, you’re not seeing double, though it might look like it in the lighter weights of the West 4-A Girls Regional Wrestling tournament.
Twins in athletics aren’t anything new, but when twins wrestle twins, and another twin takes third in the same division, you might want to take note.
The rate for twins is one in 250 on average.
Tiny Shoshoni High School didn’t just break the odds, they’ve devasted them, especially on the wrestling team.
Last year, graduating seniors, Abriana and Lacoda Kiser wrestled for the Lady Wranglers, and this season, freshmen Peyton and Sawyer Arnhold joined the team.
Peyton and Sawyer wrestled McKinzie and Kaylee Mortenson of Pinedale in the 105 and 110-pound championship matches at Evanston last weekend.
It’s tempting to say, unprecedented, when speaking of athletics, but it is rarely a unique event, just one that people haven’t noticed before.
The 105 and 110-pound girl’s championships were unprecedented.
Never before in the brief, two-year history of regional girls’ wrestling have twins, met twins in the finals.
The Arnhold twins began wrestling just two years ago in seventh grade while attending school in Riverton.
They transferred to Shoshoni for high school and have been terrors in the lighter weights statewide. Unlike the boys, which are divided into three classifications, every girl in Wyoming, no matter the enrollment of their school wrestles in the same division.
“I love the all-class format, I like more mat time,” Sawyer said. “I like wrestling big school, small school.”
“I thought I had her pinned, but my foot was out of bounds,” Peyton said. “I’m really excited to see how they’ve wrestled, now that we’ve seen them, it’ll be good matches in the future.”
“We haven’t wrestled two twins at the same time, we’ve wrestled other twins, especially not in the finals,” Peyton said.
This was Peyton’s first match with McKinzie Mortensen.
The Mortenson twins are juniors.
“Going into this match, I was going into the match not knowing anything,” Peyton said. “Now that I know how she wrestles I think it will be a much better match.”
Identical twin wrestlers are apt to run into each other in tournaments, since they weigh the same, but that hasn’t happened since junior high for the Arnhold sisters.
“I have always been willing to go to a heavier weight,” Sawyer said. “Last year at USA, I weighed 108 and wrestled 120 to stay out of my sister’s bracket.”
The Mortensen sisters weren’t new to Sawyer and Peyton. They traveled with them to a national tournament at Twin Falls, Iowa last summer. But the double vision didn’t stop there. Also wrestling were the Kiser twins of Shoshoni, and Hailey and Hayden Robinson from Thermopolis.
Four sets of twins, competing on the Wyoming team in a national tournament, the odds are astronomical.
Last Saturday’s championship matches were the first time the Arnhold sisters met the Mortenson sisters on the mat. There is a comradery in girls’ wrestling you don’t find in their male counterparts.
“It was really fun wrestling them, and I can’t wait to see them in the future,” Peyton said. “I’m looking forward to state. I love wrestling kids from big schools, it’s better opportunities and better matches. I hope they don’t change it and keep one division.”
Every wrestler has a favorite takedown and a favorite move.
“My favorite takedown is blast double or Russian fireman,” Sawyer said. “I ran the Russian fireman a lot this season it was a lot of fun. It’s a five-point move especially in Greco Roman.”
Sawyer is 31-5 on the season, while Peyton is 29-6.
Peyton’s taste in takedowns has a lot of air under it as well.
“My favorite takedown is a double-leg, I like fireman’s, I also do a souffle,” Peyton said. “We call it suicide role, but it’s more of a souffle.”
In another twist, the third-place wrestler in McKinzie and Peyton’s 105-pound division, Rylin Plant of Rock Springs is also a twin, though her sister Hayden competes in indoor track.”
The Arnhold sisters competed with Rylin and Hayden in gymnastics.
In practice they often wrestle each other, but they work against the boys as well, including regional 120-pound champion Branson Thompson and regional winner Wiley Philleo at 157 pounds.
The twins also play volleyball, compete in track and are about to begin boxing, though they’ve given up gymnastics.