PORT ANGELES — Faye Dachs has been a pioneer for Port Angeles High School athletics and she plans to keep being a trend-setter in her college career.
Dachs was the first female co-captain for the Port Angeles wrestling team. She is now the second Roughrider to sign a college athletic letter of intent for women’s wrestling, joining her fellow captain and teammate Willow Harvey in continuing her wrestling career beyond high school.
Dachs last year agreed to wrestle for The Evergreen State College in Olympia. Harvey a few weeks ago signed to wrestle for the University of Providence in Great Falls, Mont.
“It’s been a blessing coaching her over the years,” said her high school coach Brian Cristion. He said at first Dachs had trouble finding other girls to wrestle and would be matched up against boys. Much of the time, the boys would forfeit, but Dachs was able to get some matches in with them. “She said, ‘I don’t care, I just want to wrestle’,” Cristion said.
Cristion said their leadership abilities were the reason he made Dachs and Harvey co-captains of the boys and girls wrestling teams.
“We didn’t want the boys to be in charge of us,” Harvey said. “[Now] we both get to go off and continue to do what we love.”
Port Angeles principal Jeff Lunt is an Evergreen graduate.
“I was so excited to hear she is going to my alma mater,” Lunt said. “It’s a special, unique, wild, strange place. I’m so happy she is going to be a Geoduck.”
The Evergreen State College might seem like an unusual place to have a physical sport such as women’s wrestling. TESC, which competes at the NAIA level, has no football program. Dachs said the school started the women’s wrestling program just last year. In the program’s first year, the team qualified for the NAIA national championship meet.
“Their coach’s [Fan Zhang] goal is to start up as many women’s programs as he can,” she said.
Dachs had a successful four-year career for the Riders as she and Harvey joined the program together as freshmen. She came in sixth in her weight class at the Mat Classic in 2023, her junior year. She took first in her 115-pound weight class in a couple of meets, including the big Forks Invitational, and was third at regionals in both her senior and junior years. In her senior year at the Mat Classic, she went 2-2 in four matches.
Harvey was sixth at the Mat Classic her senior year at 135 pounds. She was second at regionals and also won her weight class twice in her career.
Dachs said she doesn’t mind being seen as a trailblazer.
“I want other women to believe they can succeed in a male-dominated sport,” she said.
Port Angeles Athletic Director Dwayne Johnson presents Dachs with her letter of intent for The Evergreen State College. (Pierre LaBossiere/Peninsula Daily News)
