East Helena state wrestling champ Eli Erdahl commits to Dickinson State

Eli Erdahl’s place in East Helena wrestling history was already secure when he became the first Vigilante to win a state championship, and now the senior is taking that success to Dickinson State University.

Erdahl, who finished his East Helena career with 121 wins, won the Class A boys 110-pound title at the Montana all-class state tournament in Billings on Feb. 26, 2026. The milestone gave East Helena its first individual state wrestling champion and added another name to a Helena-area winter sports run that has reached far beyond the city limits.

The title match came with a burst of confusion before the celebration. Erdahl said he initially thought the bout had been stopped because of a bloody nose, and only later realized he had won. By then, the moment had already become the biggest of his wrestling career. For a program that had never produced a state champion before, the breakthrough landed as both a finish line and a starting point.

East Helena head coach Tim Baird said Erdahl had “set the bar” for the program. That standard matters in a small-school wrestling room, where the next group of Vigilantes watches what it takes to climb from good to elite. Baird pointed to the routines behind Erdahl’s success, including summer workouts, proper nutrition and consistent practice, the kind of habits that can change what a program expects from itself.

Erdahl said he hoped his run would do more than fill a spot in the record book. He said he wanted his achievement to push other East Helena athletes to work harder, send more wrestlers to state and eventually produce more state champions. In a county where high school sports often build from one breakthrough season to the next, his title gives younger wrestlers a concrete example to follow.

His commitment to Dickinson State also keeps him in a wrestling program with a long track record. The Blue Hawks’ men’s team competes in the NAIA, and Dickinson State traces its roots back to June 24, 1918, when it opened as Dickinson State Normal School. The program’s wrestling history includes former coach LeRoy Boespflug, who returned in 1968 and guided the Blue Hawks to their first NDCAC wrestling title before defending it for three straight years.

Erdahl’s move adds another local champion to a college program that recruits across the region, while East Helena and Helena Capital continue to build momentum. At the same tournament where Erdahl won his title, Taylor Lay claimed her third individual state championship, and Capital’s girls earned the first state tournament team trophy in school history.