Riding High

Still riding high after the first Montana Girls All-State wrestling tournament, where two Plains-Hot Springs wrestlers won medals and two others also had the opportunity to compete, the Savage Horsemen grapplers will try to live up to what their girls accomplished in the next few weeks.

The Montana boys prep wrestling season sees the beginning of the end this weekend as teams gather for the first tournaments of the 2020-2021 school year. In Class B-C, that means that the 25 teams of the Western B-C will gather in Cut Bank for the divisional tournament, where the top eight from each weight will then make their ways to the State B-C meet in Shelby March 5-6.

Lily MacDonald and Taylor Angle, both juniors, made history for the P-HS wrestling program by both earning medals in the inaugural Girls All-Class State Meet wrestled at Lockwood High School in Billings last Friday and Saturday. MacDonald earned second place at 152 pounds and Angle battled back after a loss in the championship quarterfinal to win third.

In overall team scoring, with freshman Olivia Easter (113 pounds) and senior Mykenzi Blood (132) also contributing, the P-HS girls final tally of 48 points earned Plains-Hot Springs eighth place overall in the state-wide meet. P-HS finished second to Cascade among Class B-C schools in Billings.

MacDonald advanced all the way to the championship in her weight class. In the quarterfinals MacDonald pinned Anna Stutz of Choteau in 1:29, she then pinned JJ Carter of Cut Bank in 1:21 of the semifinals before being pinned by Kendal Tucker of Billings Senior in 152-pound championship match.

Angle, the daughter of head coach Shane Angle (he and Keaton Bannout accompanied and coached the P-HS girls in Billings), had a long, arduous road to her third place medal.

After she pinned Mayse Fox of Miles City to advance to the quarterfinals, Angle then fell to Jazmin Gorder of Poplar.

In the wrestlebacks, Angle won by pin four straight times to claim her third place medal, sticking Hamilton Hannah Hicks in 2:09, pinning Anaconda's Cora Pensatni in 57 seconds, flattening Ruste Torres of Billings Skyview in 1:29, and, finally pinning Flathead's Hania Halversen in 2:29 of the consolation final.

Both happy to be part of the first Girls State wrestling meet ever in Montana, Blood and Easter both wrestled hard but were eliminated after two losses.