Submitted Photo New Minot United girls’ wrestling head coach Arianne Korish pins her opponent during a match. Korish used to wrestle for Minot State University before retiring. Photo courtesy of Arianne Korish

Minot United has a new head coach for their girls’ wrestling team heading into the new season.

Arianne Korish only wrestled for seven years before injuries led her to retirement, but she says that wrestling has always been a part of her life. Growing up in the state of Oregon, Korish spent most of her time swimming. Her brother had been wrestling since the age of five all the way through, and her father had always been a wrestling coach. One year, Korish noticed a girl had joined her local club wrestling team. She asked her dad if she too could wrestle, and was met with an enthusiastic “heck yeah!”

“I’ve kind of been around the sport all my life,” Korish said. “I just didn’t know girls could wrestle until I saw one girl wrestling, and it just encouraged me to do it.”

After graduating high school, Korish was offered the opportunity to continue wrestling into college, and she jumped at the chance. Korish wrestled for Minot State University as a beaver for two seasons, but while Korish loved the sport, it took its toll on her.

“I had my first concussion my junior year of high school and then two my senior year,” Korish said. “Then I had [another] two in college. So I decided that I didn’t want to risk getting another head injury, so I just retired.”

Before retiring from wrestling, Korish was third in the state of Oregon in high school girls wrestling and took eighth place in the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championships during her 2023-24 season.

Though she retired from wrestling, she currently finds pride in her coaching career. Coach Korish previously coached girls’ wrestling as an assistant for the past two years for the Majettes, but with the new season coming up, she will be taking the role of head coach for girls’ wrestling at Minot United. The Minot United teams will feature wrestlers from Minot High and Minot North High School.

With Coach Korish as an assistant, the Majettes were the 2024-2025 NDHSAA State Girls Wrestling Champions accumulating 158 team points during the individual brackets and took second place in the state duals tournament.

Coach Korish says that the team’s previous success is daunting, but she feels up to the task.

“It definitely is stressful coming into a team that’s already very successful, but I’m coming in to coach girls that are [already part] of a very solid team, so I am confident that we will do very good this season,” Coach Korish said. “I’m pretty nervous, but I have a lot of support and I know that I can do it with the support that I have.”

Coach Korish says that she is very excited to be the new head coach for Minot United and is looking forward to a great season coaching the team.