Lilly Breeden already held the record for the most state championships for the Liberty girls wrestling program.
Now, she’s tops among the list of Fargo All-Americans as well.
Competing at the U.S. Marine Corps Junior Nationals, the Liberty High School graduate earned All-American honors by taking 7th in the 100-pound bracket with a pin over Texas state champion Noah Kovach in her final match.
“It means a lot being able to have that accomplishment,” Breeden said of the most A-A honors for the Liberty program. “I know we have other All-Americans and my sister, Sandy, I think she could’ve been a three-time All-American too, but she had surgery. But it just feels amazing and it shows the hard work really pays off. If you’re dedicated to something, you can do whatever you put your mind to.”
In her fourth trip to the Fargodome in Fargo, North Dakota, she was determined to have a better showing at a national event.
In June, she went 3-4 at the Women’s National Duals
Breeden won that many to start the Fargo trip.
She had pins over Katelynn Dockery from Texas and Madison Leonard from Kentucky and a 10-0 tech fall against Alianna Lyon from New York.
The run on the championship bracket ended with a loss to Washington’s Maisie Elliott, who beat her at the National Dual as well.
Breeden, a three-time MSHSAA state champion, won two of her last three to take seventh.
She got a 10-0 tech fall win over Katie Zimmerman from Utah in the consolation quarterfinals. Zimmerman was a Utah state champion at 105 pounds and took 5th at the U.S. Open this year.
Breeden lost by a pin in the consolation sub-semifinals against two-time Washington state champion Vina Nguyen. In the seventh-place match, she needed 29 seconds to pin Kovach, a two-time UIL state champion.
“It’s definitely still a battle every time,” she said of being there four times now. “This is the lowest that I’ve placed at Fargo. My sophomore year, I didn’t place, but this year was the lowest that I did place, and it definitely was really tough. The mental aspect of it definitely gets hard too every single year.”
She was fourth in 2025 and was fifth in 2023.
“It feels good to end with a win, definitely, but I wish I could have done better than the other years,” Breeden said. “I’m glad that after I had a rough National Duals, I was still able to be an All-American.”
She and Sandy, her twin sister, will wrestle at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, this upcoming school year. They follow in the footsteps of their older sisters, Julia and Jaden, who both wrestled for Doane University.
Lilly said that head coach Jeff McGinness and assistants Emma Cochran and Jason Padilla made her and her sister feel welcomed.
“I feel like this is where I’m going to succeed the best and have the most improvement,” she said. “And the recruiting process was fun. We had a couple of colleges reach out. We went on a couple different visits too; all the colleges we visited were very nice. Simpson just felt like the best fit for us, honestly.”
The Simpson roster last year featured several Missourians: Annelise Obermark and Kendra Bliss from Washington, Abby Fuglsang from Camdenton, Autumn Calvert from Winnetonka and Sophia Miller from Francis Howell Central,
“When I first started wrestling, I was always told you’re going to get your college paid for,” Breeden said. “I heard how women’s wrestling is growing. I didn’t really care about it getting paid for. I just knew I wanted to do it on that level. I like being able to know that I’m going to college for something that I’ve worked so hard for. It like means a lot to me because I feel like I’ve accomplished all the goals that younger me set for herself.”