2025 NewsTribune Girls Wrestler of the Year: La Salle-Peru’s Kiely Domyancich

Every day last summer when Kiely Domyancich was training for her junior wrestling season at La Salle-Peru, she thought of how her sophomore season ended.

As a sophomore, Domyancich fell one win shy of the state tournament as she lost to an opponent she had beaten four times already that season.

“I thought of it every single day, how I disappointed myself, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again,” Domyancich said.

Domyancich went to camps, practiced and competed with two travel teams.

“I think I got a lot more technique and a lot more strategic in my wrestling,” Domyancich said. “At the beginning of the summer, I was more of a defensive wrestler. Now I think I’m more of the aggressor in the match. I didn’t really shoot a lot last year. I started shooting at the end of last year. This year, I made sure to start shooting all my opponents before they could shoot on me.”

With all her work and improvement, Domyancich did not disappoint herself this season.

Domyancich went 34-4 with three of her losses coming to the state champion, runner-up and fourth-place finisher. She won the Rockford East, Princeton, Springfield, Ottawa, Interstate 8 Conference and Metamora Regional tournaments. She placed second at the Mahomet-Seymour tournament and third at the Geneseo Sectional and ended her season by becoming the first female state medalist in L-P history with a fifth-place finish at 115 pounds at the state finals.

For all she accomplished this season, Domyancich is the 2025 NewsTribune Girls Wrestler of the Year.

“Definitely, I think I got my redemption,” Domyancich said. “It felt good because I knew that other people were going to see that work, and I wasn’t just going to see internal improvements.”

Domyancich has continued to improve since she was the only girl in the program as an inexperienced freshman.

“She came in and it took her a few weeks to even get the form of a shot down,” said L-P assistant Nolan Keeney, who works a lot with the girls wrestlers. “I knew she was going to be a project, but as the years went on and with the hard work and dedication she’s put into wrestling, it’s really working out well for her.”

Keeney said she improved “tremendously” from sophomore year to this season as she added to her repertoire.

“Last year she found a few moves she liked and was comfortable with and we rolled with it, but I told her there’s going to come a point when we need to open up the playbook because the more you wrestle an individual, they’re going to start catching on to you. Sadly, that hurt us in the end [last year],” Keeney said. “As a junior, we came up with a new plan so she could get comfortable hitting other moves. I would say based off finishing fifth at state that it worked out pretty well.”

As Domyancich has grown as a wrestler, the girls program has grown with her. After being the only girl as a freshman, L-P had three her sophomore year and nearly a full team this season. It’s grown to the point L-P approved adding a dedicated girls head coach and assistant at its most recent board meeting.

“She’s kind of our poster girl,” Keeney said. “Younger girls are coming in looking at her like, “If Kiely can do it, then I’m going to give it a shot.’ It’s really taken off.”

L-P head wrestling coach Matt Rebholz said “it means a lot that our program is developing.”

“It’s awesome that she was able to achieve the first medal for L-P,” Rebholz said. “She took [last year’s disappointment] and said, ‘I’m going to do better next year,’ and she did. She told us her goal was to get a win down at state and she came away with a lot more than just a win. So that was really nice to see.”

Domyancich plans to continue working this summer – with more focus on freestyle as she looks ahead to college – in hopes of doing better as a senior.

“I got my goal done this year, and I want to set new goals for next year,” Domyancich said. “I can’t be satisfied with just placing fifth. I think it would be good to place top three in the state. Since it’s my senior year, I want to go all out.”