Ryan Bozer:
Hey, good morning. I'm SDPB's Ryan Bozer with another Your Morning In Play. Joining me again this morning is SDPB's Sports and Recreation Reporter, Nate Wek, off of a busy weekend of wrestling, I assume. Nate, how was the Wrestling Championships?
Nate Wek:
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Eight mats for a lot of it on the floor of the Denny Sanford Premier Center in Sioux Falls. But yeah, it was a lot of fun, especially when you get to that championship session and you see the celebratory look and then the look of disappointment. You really experience with wrestling the broad spectrum of all of the emotions and the hard work that these kids put into it. So a very fun event as always and yeah, it was a good time. Pierre Girls won their third straight Girls State Wrestling Championship as a team.
Ryan Bozer:
Nice.
Nate Wek:
Sturgis who we talked about during the team duels, having won that a couple of weeks ago, they won the overall team title as well. I think it's their first overall team title in 14 years. And Sturgis obviously had years of being a powerhouse and stuff like that prior to the last 15 years, but so it was cool to see them get back on top as well. And then Canton won their seventh straight state team title on the B side. You had Navarro Schunke, one of the best heavyweights that we've had in state prep history, walk off the mat as a five time champion, as the first in Class A to ever do that. And actually, he took his shoes off at the end, because that's what you do in wrestling when it's your final bout. He's retiring from the sport because he's going to be going to Kansas State to play football for the Wildcats in Manhattan, Kansas. So an emotional moment there too for him. So that just gives you a tip of the iceberg as to some of the really great moments that we saw this weekend.
Ryan Bozer:
No, I mean that sounds fantastic. Sounds like something new happening each minute, somebody having a success. That's fantastic. For all of that reporting and stuff, that's all online I assume?
Nate Wek:
Yep. sdpb.org/wrestling. We've got some nice write-ups that we've done on Sturgis, did a nice writeup as well on Navarro Schunke out of Brandon Valley. So yeah, so there's our print stories and some video packages and stuff that we did. And of course, all the results and photos at sdpb.org/wrestling.
Ryan Bozer:
Awesome. And then, you and I had talked last week about the documentary you guys have coming out, Tales from the Hardwood, and you said you wanted to bring another story this week for us. Do you got one?
Nate Wek:
I do have one. And this one, it might start off sounding like a basketball story, but once we get done talking about it, you'll realize that there's a lot more to this young man than just basketball. So Miles Krajewski out of Yankton, is a student manager for the Bucks Boys basketball team. Now he is a sports loving individual, absolutely loves sports. I've seen him on the podium at state tennis, I've seen him on one of the top 25 golfers at state golf. But his main sport, believe it or not, that he's best at, is badminton. So you don't really think about this, and these are stories and stuff too where that might shock you. But yeah, there's a high school kid out of Yankton, South Dakota that is one of the best badminton players that you'll find.
Now Miles was born, and I want to make sure I get this right as well, so achondroplasia is what he was born with. And his dad said that that's one of the most common forms of dwarfism. His dad did talk to us a little bit too about when they were pregnant with Miles, there was some concern. Google was just starting to really become a big search engine and there was a lot of bad stuff on the internet, so there was some worry. But as soon as Miles was born, he was perfect. And he quickly fell in love with sports as soon as he could walk. And badminton followed that obviously at some point. So I did ask Miles, I said, "Of all the sports you play, I know you're best at badminton, but why is badminton the sport that you went with?" And I mean, he's going to repeat me a little bit here too, but this is what Miles had to say.
Miles Krajewski:
It's probably the sport that I'm best at. So I'm a two time Para PanAm champion, or I've won two golds in the PanAm Championships for singles and then three in doubles. And then no golds in mixed doubles, just a few silvers. And then I've won two golds in the Para PanAm games, one for singles, one for mixed, and then a silver medal in the 2019 Para PanAm games in singles.
Ryan Bozer:
So I mean, clearly just a guy that not only is great at badminton, but just really passionate about sports as a whole.
Nate Wek:
Right. And he's traveled to, when we wrapped up our filming with him, he had to get on a plane and go over to Thailand to play. He's been in Canada, Japan, Denmark, Norway, I mean, you name it, he's been there. So it's really quite astounding to see what he's already been able to accomplish. I look back at what I was like in high school and this kid has done way more than I ever would've even dreamed of doing when I was in high school.
Ryan Bozer:
Right.
Nate Wek:
So to see an 18-year-old kid that is really heavily involved in para badminton and is achieving these world achievements, these world medals, really shows just how spectacular this kid is.
Ryan Bozer:
Yeah, I mean, here I am thinking badminton was just a fun thing I used to play in the backyard as a kid, right?
Nate Wek:
Right.
Ryan Bozer:
But I could have been traveling doing it, playing in other people's backyards. I missed out, I missed out.
Nate Wek:
Well, and you think about it too, and his dad said, and when Miles told us too, there's not a lot of people in the upper Midwest that play badminton. So basically they found a group down in Omaha, Nebraska and that was their first in with the sport. And so they've made a lot of trips over the years just to go practice and train in Omaha, Nebraska. And then from there it's expanded into a nationwide sport for Miles and now obviously a worldwide sport for Miles as well.
Ryan Bozer:
Wow.
Nate Wek:
So just absolutely incredible. And there's video clips and stuff of him playing and stuff that'll be in this video package that's part of the Tales from the Hardwood show. And just seeing how fast he is and how good he is will truly surprise you. I mean, he is absolutely fantastic and if I ever want to pick up badminton, I'm going to have Miles train me.
Ryan Bozer:
I love that. Well, we'll watch Miles tonight (Thursday, February 29th) on Tales from the Hardwood airing at 8:00 Central, 7:00 Mountain on SDPB TV. Where else can we watch that, Nate?
Nate Wek:
Yeah, we're also going to actually stream it live as well on our YouTube channel. So you can set your alerts for that, if that's your thing. We're also going to stream it live as well on our SDPB Sports Facebook page.
Ryan Bozer:
Awesome. Well, I need to go brush up on my Badminton skills apparently. We'll do a one on one at some point.
Nate Wek:
Sounds good.
Ryan Bozer:
And we'll chat again next week with another great sports story I have.
Nate Wek:
All right, well thanks Ryan. I really appreciate it.
