Hawks place four in Kinney Classic

Although their roster was reduced due to undisclosed reasons, the Thompson Falls wrestling team stayed busy last week.

Coach Ian Taylor and his temporarily reduced squad of Hawk grapplers participated in the Plains-Hot Springs quadrangular Thursday and then wrestled in the Bob Kinney Classic in Superior Saturday.

A Kinney Classic championship by freshman Trae Thilmony at 113 pounds and placing efforts by three other Hawks highlighted Thompson Falls efforts in Superior.

Dakota Irvine wrestled down second place at 182 pounds, Shane Reishus won fourth at 126 and Dane Chojnacky also won fourth at 160 to complete Thompson Falls scoring in the Kinney meet.

Heavyweight Seth Alarcon fell ill before the tournament. Four other Hawks were not in the lineup for undisclosed reasons last week.

Headed to the prestigious CMR Christmas Classic in Great Falls this weekend (after grappling in a mixer match at Mission Tuesday), Taylor says Alarcon should be able to go this week but that the other four wrestlers who were MIA last week will not return until the following week.

Only two tournaments into his high school wrestling career, Thilmony is already turning heads on the Western B-C mat scene. The 113-pound dynamo won all three of his matches by pin – in a little over three minutes of total mat time – to add the Kinney title to the Polson Invitational championship he won a week earlier.

Thilmony stuck Cut Bank's Hunter Kennedy in 17 seconds in the first round, flattened Florence's Jacob Prescott in 2:33 of the semifinals, and finally pinned Caleb Simpson of Cut Bank in another match requiring only 17 seconds in the championship.

"Trae has some big goals this season and he is capable of reaching them," Taylor said. "It will be interesting to see how he stacks up in Great Falls in a meet that is actually probably tougher than the State B-C meet is."

Irvine reached the championship match at 182 by pinning Libby's Tolin Montgomery in 1:38 of the quarterfinals and then edging Western B-C rival Trey Green of Clark Fork by a 6-4 decision in the semis. Irvine lost the championship match by pin to JR Sweewald of Cut Bank.

"We needed that win over Green for seeding criteria later on," Taylor said. "Dakota needs to work on his offense a little more but he looked really good in Superior last week."

Reishus and Chojnacky earned the first placing medals of their prep careers in the Kinney Classic. Reishus won two matches by pin to earn his Kinney medal while Chojnacky ended up wrestling a total of five matches, three of which he won by pin, to earn his.

Taylor said the Hawks will be treated to a tour of the campus and will practice in the new University of Providence (formerly the University of Great Falls) wrestling facilities before the tournament begins Thursday.

"We are looking forward to it," Taylor said. "This tournament is always one of the better ones in Montana any given season."