South Dakota
Three-point takedown changes high school wrestling strategy in South Dakota
MITCHELL — High school wrestling in South Dakota has a new signal for when a wrestler executes a takedown.
Officials raise three fingers in the air instead of two.
As part of a series of rule changes by the National Federation of State High School Associations last April, wrestlers are now awarded three points for executing a takedown in order to encourage more attacking from a neutral position on the mat. South Dakota High School Activities Association-sponsored boys and girls wrestling uses the NFHS rulebook.
The changes come a year after the three-point takedown was implemented in the college ranks at the NCAA and the NAIA levels. As more points are now on offer to the wrestlers, running up the score early in matches proves advantageous.
“I’ve been telling my kids that you’ve got to be able to come out of the first period with the takedown or 0-0,” Chamberlain head coach John Donovan said. “Kids that are really good on their feet are cutting people loose and then getting another takedown right away. You’re now down 6-1 and that’s quite a lead to make back up.”
Blake Durham / Mitchell Republic
The traditional top-bottom style of wrestling, where the wrestler on top of their opponent controls the pace and movement of the match, has been replaced in essence by a style that features wrestlers trying to cut underneath opponents, aiming at the legs to go and secure takedowns.
Similar to college coaches and wrestlers’ observations last season, the high school coaches have noticed the length of a match has been trimmed with wrestlers trying to run up the score. The pace of a match can also take on a frantic feel, providing wrestlers with less time to reset.
“You always want to keep going,” Kimball/White Lake/Platte-Geddes wrestler Iden Myers said. “You never want to try and stall, but at the same time when you can catch your breath, you have to catch your breath because you always have to be looking to score.”
Though the additional points benefit wrestlers who are strong on their feet and can create good positions, it also places a premium on defensive tactics to protect large leads during a match. The goal for wrestlers is to still try and pin their opponents, and with higher scoring comes with a bit more desperation for the trailing wrestler.
“I think more than anything you can’t get careless,” Parkston boys head coach Dan Bonte said. “You have to have cleaner finishes and execute on your feet better in order to stay in matches. Otherwise, you can get yourself in a hole that’s hard to crawl back out.”
Nathan Swaffar / Mitchell Republic
The three-point takedown, in addition to revising the near-fall criteria to award wrestlers a maximum of four points for keeping their opponents down in a pin attempt, has seen technical falls increase across the state and matches finishing sooner.
“More talented wrestlers are able to get that tech fall sooner,” Parkston/Ethan girls head coach Dustin Bouza said. “The wrestler is more under the gun to score the points versus being able to sit back and go, ‘I can wait until the third period.’”
A technical fall occurs in high school wrestling when a wrestler jumps out to a 15-point lead in a match, the sport’s equivalent of a mercy rule. Last season, Burke/Gregory boys wrestler Judd Hansen led the state with 14 technical falls, and Bennett County’s Finley Evjan led the girls in the category with three.
This season, five boys and 14 girls wrestlers have surpassed last year’s state-leading totals with six weeks remaining in the season. Philip/Kadoka Area/Wall’s Kale Crowser has a boys-leading 19 technical falls to his name, with Wagner’s Gannon Knebel second in the state at 16. Sisseton’s Vi Anderson and Sioux Falls Washington’s Olivia Kolbrek share the girls lead with seven.
Blake Durham / Mitchell Republic
While the changes have led to more attacking at duals and tournaments this season, some in the community feel the prestige of some stats and the old style of wrestling was taken away from the sport.
“Bottom wrestling is probably not even a big deal anymore,” Burke/Gregory head coach Seth Webster said. “I’m not a big fan of (the rule changes), but a lot of people are. Tech falls used to mean something back in the day. Now you get two takedowns to the back and then one extra point off the bottom hit, you got a tech fall already.”
However, wrestlers themselves believe there’s still a place for traditional wrestling today, whether to slow the pace down or score points off escapes and reversals of opponent holds. It also allows an opponent to be less fearful of getting pinned on the mat, knowing they can make up points as easily as losing points.
“I’m not wrestling as scared as I was last year,” Mitchell girls wrestler Frankie Kranz said. “I know that if I can get a reversal or an escape, I can get on top and make up those points if I do get taken down. That’s more points on my feet.”
Nathan Swaffar / Mitchell Republic
As the stakes get higher with trips to the state tournament and hardware on the line, the matches could see more aggressiveness out of the wrestlers to score points and execute pins, especially the trailing wrestler. But if there’s one detail everyone is in agreement on, the action on the mat’s been entertaining for everyone in attendance.
“It makes it more exciting for the fans,” KWLPG head coach Thomas Konechne said. “The wrestlers understand the rules and they know what they need to do to make sure that they’re staying in these matches or pulling away in these matches even. But wrestling is still wrestling.”
“It’s a good change moving forward,” Bonte added. “Everybody likes seeing offense, and that’s kind of what we like to coach, too. You’re being rewarded for being on offense more, and it’s more fun for the fans to watch.”
The Class B boys dual state wrestling tournament takes place on Friday, Feb. 14, in Pierre, with the Class A boys dual tournament being held on Saturday, Feb. 15. Region tournaments for both boys and girls on Feb. 20 through Feb. 22, with the individual state wrestling tournament running from Feb. 27 through March 1, at the Summit Arena in Rapid City.
South Dakota
SD Lottery Powerball, Lotto America winning numbers for July 6, 2026
The South Dakota Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at July 6, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from July 6 drawing
17-44-63-66-67, Powerball: 04, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Lotto America numbers from July 6 drawing
12-16-19-21-23, Star Ball: 10, ASB: 03
Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from July 6 drawing
02-08-32-54-56, Bonus: 03
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes of $100 or less: Can be claimed at any South Dakota Lottery retailer.
- Prizes of $101 or more: Must be claimed from the Lottery. By mail, send a claim form and a signed winning ticket to the Lottery at 711 E. Wells Avenue, Pierre, SD 57501.
- Any jackpot-winning ticket for Dakota Cash or Lotto America, top prize-winning ticket for Lucky for Life, or for the second prizes for Powerball and Mega Millions must be presented in person at a Lottery office. A jackpot-winning Powerball or Mega Millions ticket must be presented in person at the Lottery office in Pierre.
When are the South Dakota Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 9:59 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 10 p.m. CT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 9:38 p.m. CT daily.
- Lotto America: 9:15 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Dakota Cash: 9 p.m. CT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 10:15 p.m. CT daily.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a South Dakota editor. You can send feedback using this form.
South Dakota
South Dakota native lived near Iranian missile & drone attacks
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South Dakota
Water hampers growth near Sioux Falls but solution near
The existing water treatment plant for the Minnehaha Community Water Corp. on June 9, 2026, south of Dell Rapids, S.D. (Photo: Bart Pfankuch / South Dakota News Watch)
DELL RAPIDS, S.D. – Scott Buss can only imagine what this town north of Sioux Falls might have looked like – and how many jobs and taxes would have been generated – if there wasn’t a local shortage of available water.
Buss, executive director of the Minnehaha Community Water Corp., sat in the conference room of the rural water system based in Dell Rapids recently and ticked off the industrial and agricultural projects turned away due to a lack of water.
After hitting its limit on how much water it can provide a few years ago, the rural system has had to turn away proposed projects valued at hundreds of millions of dollars that offered an untold number of new jobs, he said.
The rejected projects include the Agropur Cheese plant that eventually opened in Lake Norden. A few proposed hog farms and dairy expansions in northern Minnehaha County were also stalled, Buss said.
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Other proposals, most of which never came to fruition in South Dakota, included the $1.5 billion Gevo corn-based jet fuel plant, the $5oo million Wholestone Farms hog processing plant and a data center that at some point all eyed the Dell Rapids area for development.
“All the water rights are spoken for between Dell Rapids and Sioux Falls, so there was no more water to be had in Minnehaha County,” Buss told News Watch in an interview in June. “With all the (residential) development that was coming in, we realized that our well capacity and our treatment capacity was limiting our ability to take on new high water-use customers.”
Buss and the nonprofit corporation’s board of directors aren’t waiting around to potentially miss out on more opportunities.
In a unique arrangement, the corporation is partnering with the neighboring Big Sioux Community Water System to the north on a $170 million expansion project called Shared Resources. The expansion, started three years ago, will use new wells into the Big Sioux Aquifer to generate 8 million gallons of water more per day starting this fall.
“It’s going to be a huge and great benefit for Big Sioux and Minnehaha water,” said Jodi Johanson, director of the Big Sioux system based in Egan. “This project is going to make sure that down the road we have enough water for the future.”
2 systems get stronger together
The Minnehaha water corporation is still able to bring on new residential and retail customers who consume part of the 9.2 million gallons of treated water it can provide on a daily basis.
The system was formed by a group of farmers and landowners in the 1970s but sought a reliable way of providing more and cleaner water to residents of Minnehaha County outside of Sioux Falls who relied exclusively on individual wells. The system started with about 1,200 customers but has grown to more than 5,500 now in seven cities, mostly north of the Sioux Falls metro area.
Given the limits on water from the aquifer, and balancing the water needs of consistent housing and retail growth in northern Minnehaha County, the water system had to say no to developments that request 1 million or more gallons of water per day, Buss said. A million gallons per day is equivalent to the water consumption of about 4,300 homes, he said.
Billions needed to keep South Dakota taps flowing
South Dakota water systems will increasingly turn to the Missouri River to provide water for future population, agricultural and industrial growth. But plans will require billions of dollars and decades of construction to keep taps flowing freely.
As with other rural water systems in South Dakota, the aquifers the systems rely on for their water are either running low or are legally tapped out, or both.
In the case of Minnehaha water corporation, the Big Sioux River Aquifer has gotten drier, but state law is also preventing it from taking more water from the aquifer.
In 1996, the state Water Management Board allocated water rights, or withdrawal limits, to systems that take groundwater from the aquifer, Buss said.
Those limits have now been reached, meaning that Minnehaha water cannot take any more than the 7 million gallons per day it is drawing now.
The system also receives about 2 million gallons per day from the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System, making its daily maximum capacity of about 9.2 million gallons per day, which it sometimes reaches, especially during spring planting season or hot summer months.
Directly to the north, the Big Sioux Community Water System produces up to 2 million gallons per day for about 2,400 customers in Moody and Lake counties as well as some in Brookings County and in western Minnesota, Johanson said.
The system still has room within its water rights to draw more water, making it an attractive partner for Minnehaha water.
Though Big Sioux Community Water System has not turned away any large projects, it needs more water to serve a boom in residential growth in the region, Johanson said.
In the area around Lake Madison, near Madison, developers are considering projects that could someday bring 500 new homes and a new nine-hole golf course, she said.
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The system also serves a number of dairies that use significant water and provides water to the Dakota Ethanol plant in Wentworth, which is undergoing an expansion. Farmers in the region are also using greater quantities of water to deliver chemicals onto their land, Johanson said.
“This is our first expansion,” she said. “We’re looking forward and we’re trying to find the solution before we face a problem.”
Federal government and customers pay the way
The biggest Shared Resources ticket item is a new $80 million water treatment plant that is nearly completed on 240th Street a few miles north of Dell Rapids.
A 20-inch pipeline from the plant to the east will end at a 1.5 million gallon water tower, and a 24-inch pipeline to the west will terminate at a ground-level storage tank with a 4 million gallon capacity.
Six new wells will draw the water, and the storage tanks will provide both pressure and the ability to adapt to changing demands without service interruption, Buss said.
As with most modern water projects, the costs will be shared by government and end users. The systems are funding the project with $49 million in grants from the Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act and $121 million in low-interest loans from South Dakota’s Drinking Water State Revolving Fund.
The two systems are sharing the cost of the project loans commensurate with how much water they will receive, meaning Minnehaha will pay 65% of the costs for its 5 million gallons per day while Big Sioux will kick in 35% for its 3 million gallons more per day.
Minnehaha water is assuming $87 million in new debt and Big Sioux will take on $42 million in new debt, Buss said.
The average residential consumer in both systems that uses about 7,000 gallons per month will see their bill rise to $135 a month, roughly double the cost in 2020.
“It’s a big project, and it’s a good example of how two systems can work together to have some economies of scale,” Buss said.
Ratepayers will see a significant increase in their monthly water bills. The average residential consumer in both systems that uses about 7,000 gallons per month will see their bill rise to $135 a month, roughly double the cost in 2020, Buss said.
A big project, but even more water needed
But both systems view the Shared Resources project as a temporary fix and both are looking toward proposed projects that will tap the Missouri River for more water in the future.
Buss said his system has applied for 10 million gallons more water per day from Lewis & Clark, which has two expansion efforts planned.
Minnehaha water has simultaneously applied to receive 10 million gallons per day from the proposed Dakota Mainstem Regional Water System, a potentially $10 billion project to carry Missouri River water to more than 50 communities and organizations across eastern South Dakota and parts of Minnesota and Iowa.
The dual application effort is to make sure Minnehaha water can rely on taking in more water from at least one of the two systems as they come online, Buss said.
Johanson said Big Sioux has also signed on to accept water from Dakota Mainstem, even if it takes 20 to 40 years for the water to begin flowing.
To ensure that steady supply of high-quality drinking water, four major projects are in progress to take more water from the Missouri River – including WEB Water in the northeast, Lewis & Clark and the proposed Dakota Mainstem in the southeast as well as the proposed Western Dakota Regional Water System in western South Dakota and the Black Hills.

The projects are part of a wide-scale increase in water service capacity now underway in South Dakota, where water managers of several systems are implementing plans to serve the state for the next 40 to 50 years.
Regional rural water systems such as Minnehaha and Big Sioux are critical components of those projects because they provide water to communities and individual customers at the end of the delivery system.
Alicia Deschepper, zoning administrator for Moody County, said the water system expansions should allow for more growth to occur in Moody and Minnehaha counties, which are seeing new single-family housing developed at a rapid rate.
“I think it will be a great thing for our county and hopefully enable us to bring in more bigger businesses as well as more homes,” Deschepper said.
South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact content director Bart Pfankuch: 605-937-9398/bart.pfankuch@sdnewswatch.org.
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