By Piper Banning
Badger Sports Reporter
The Bluehawks of Dickinson University, Dickinson, North Dakota, has welcomed Savannah Rickter to wrestle on a full ride scholarship for the 2024/2025 school year. Dickinson University is a National Athletic Intercollegiate Association college.
Bonners Ferry has not sent a female wrestler to college until now.
As a three year state placer in the Idaho High School Athletics Association, three time district champion in the Intermountain League, three time Greco state champion winner of the prestigious National Wrestling Coaches Association and United States Marine Corps 2023-2024 Character & Leadership All-American Award and a consistent team Idaho member, Savannah says she is humbled and excited for this opportunity and to follow in her brother’s footsteps as a collegiate wrestler.
DSU has a brand-new women’s wrestling program, having announced the sport’s addition for the 2023 season,. At the collegiate level, women’s wrestling is recognized by roughly 100 institutions and is a national championship sport sponsored by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The NAIA added women’s wrestling as an invitational sport beginning in the 2018-19 academic year.
Savannah’s brother, Jackson Rickter, says “I’m proud that she is able to go to college, especially since it’s such an underdeveloped region for women’s wrestling, with little exposure.”
Since Savannah was six years old, wrestling has been her sport; from Greco and freestyle championships to regional and state titles, she has never stopped loving it.
“I knew from the time this girl was a tiny tiny tot, that she would do big things in the wrestling world.” says Linda Hall. And that she is doing. Savannah will head to Dickinson this fall to start her collegiate career where there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that she will move mountains.
“And there you have it. Come fall of 2024 Savannah will step on the wrestling mat as a collegiate wrestler and will officially be a Blue Hawk but she will always be my little Badger from Bonners Ferry. 
” said her mom, Kristie Rickter