Independently owned since 1905
Independently owned since 1905
by John Hamilton
Although it is only early January, crunch time has already arrived in Montana high school wrestling.
With about a month of the regular season remaining, the Thompson Falls Blue Hawks will embark on an important stretch of action these next several weeks, attending the Cut Bank Invitational this Friday and Saturday, wrestling in the Choteau Invite the week after that and, finally, hosting the Ted Kato Memorial in Thompson Falls Jan. 25.
The Western B-C Divisional meet at Mission Feb. 8 will be the next big thing after that stretch of important mat action in Montana. And then, of course, there is the State B-C tournament in Billings, the place every prep grappler in Montana wants to be Feb. 14-15.
The Cut Bank and Choteau meets are generally regarded as two of the more important tournaments of any Class B-C regular season, while the Kato tourney is valuable in its own right.
“These next three weeks will tell a lot,” Thompson Falls coach Mike Thilmony said. “We should get a good idea of how we stack up state-wide in Cut Bank and Choteau, and I look at the Kato as being a pre-divisional tourney that will let us know where we sit out west.
“Right now, our focus is on getting better in each meet and at every practice,” he added. “Our goal is to be peaking at the end of the month heading into the post season.”
Thilmony told the Ledger that the Hawks also picked up a previously unschedulecd triangular dual meet with Libby and Sandpoint in Libby Tuesday evening. Results of those duals were not available at press time.
Hawk grapplers started out the new year by competing in the Ronan Duals Friday and Saturday, ending up with seven dual matches in two days. Thompson Falls was entered into a qualifying pool for the finals Friday, and wrestled off with other teams that finished third in their pools Saturday.
In those duals, the Hawks lost to Townsend 56-18, defeated the Glacier JV 53-24 and Florence 42-18, and lost to Browning 28-27 Friday. Back on the mats Saturday, the Hawks fell 42-28 to Clark Fork (Superior-Alberton) and 42-36 to Corvallis, and defeated the Flathead JV 39-30.
“Overall, we wrestled well in Ronan,” Thilmony said. “We had a couple of injuries and a few kids out sick, and we did not have a full lineup, but we still got some good matches out of it.”
Thilmony singled out Dakota Irvine and Dane Chojnacky for their outstanding performances in Ronan.
“Dakota and Dane really wrestled well last week,” Thilmony said. “Dakota went 7-0 in the seven duals and Dane 5-1.”
Without full lineups for each match, all the other Hawks also showed well as Trae Thilmony went 3-0 at 126 pounds, Elijah Ratliff 2-1 and the returning Roman Sparks 1-0 at 132, Shane Reishus was 3-1 at 138 after just dropping to that weight, Derek Andersen was 2-4 at 145, Lucas Andersen 4-3 at 152, Seth Alarcon 2-4 at 182 and Will McPherson 2-4 at 285.
Coach Thilmony said this will be the first week where everybody is locked in at their competitive weights for the rest of the season, and looks forward to how things shake out in Cut Bank this week.
“This will be the first week where everyone is at the weights they should be,” he said. “We are excited and confident heading into Cut Bank, and hoping to make a good showing there.”
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