Trae, Roman, Dakota medal

Packing a potent 1-2 punch at 113 and 120 pounds, where Trae Thilmony and Roman Sparks won first and second place, and at 182, where Dakota Irvine grappled down second place, the Thompson Falls Blue Hawks scored 77.5 team points and finished in tenth place among 31 teams in the Choteau Invitational Friday and Saturday.

“It was a pretty good tournament, we had five kids competing and three of them ended up in the finals,” coach Ian Taylor said. “I am happy with how we did in Choteau, there is no quit in the kids we took over there, and finishing tenth is a pretty good team result with what we had.”

Besides individual champ Thilmony, who has now won four tournaments this season, and second place winners Sparks and Irvine, Lucas Anderson (138 pounds) and Dane Chojnacky (160) also wrestled in Choteau.

Thilmony made short work of the field at 113 pounds, pinning Caleb Simpson of Cut Bank in 1:26, winning a technical fall by a 17-0 score over Brady Ellison of Colstrip in the semifinals and pinning Jase Frederick of Poplar in 3:07 of the championship match.

Sparks very nearly joined Thilmony as becoming a Choteau champ, but lost a 7-4 decision to Riley Richtmyer of Townsend in the 120 pound championship match. Taylor said a five-point move by Richtmyer was the key to the match. Sparks had pinned Darrius Longknife of Harlem (in 1:06) and Kierren Rooney of Cut Bank (1:27) to gain the 120 semifinals, where he won an 11-0 major decision to advance into the final.

At 182 pounds, Irvine pinned James Crazyboy of Arlee in 2:56 in his first match, and then won two tough decisions – 5-3 over Drake Schake of Boulder and 3-2 over Justin Denton of Townsend – to land in the title match, where he lost a 9-5 decision to Andres Lopez of Malta.

“Dakota beat two ranked kids to get into the finals,” Taylor said. “That should put him in pretty good position mentally heading into the rest of the season.”

Anderson won a pigtail match (pinning Jeremy Hollar of Colstrip in 1:58) to get into the main draw, but lost to Choteau’s Pete Henderson by fall and Malta’s RC Skiff by 9-3 decision to complete his weekend of wrestling.

Chojnacky won by injury default in his first match, was pinned in the second round, came back to pin Choteau’s Tommy Ehman in the wrestlebacks before being pinned and eliminated in his next match.

Taylor and company now look forward to hosting the annual Ted Kato Invitational at TFHS Saturday. The Hawks will warm up the mat by engaging in a dual match with the Kalispell JV Friday night at 6 p.m.