Superior hosts Little Guy tourney
Superior's Tucker McClees takes Thompson Falls’ Riley Riffle to the mat in the beginner 50-pound class Thursday. Mission/Charlo/Dixon, Thompson Falls and Plains-Hot Springs each sent teams to the duals at Superior. McClees won.
Four schools showed up to packed gym for the Superior Little Guy Duals Thursday night.
Superior's young wrestlers grappled against wrestlers from Thompson Falls, Plains-Hot Springs and Mission/Charlo/Dixon teams in their second tournament of the season.
Superior wrestling coach Charlie Crabb said they did not keep any records of the event because there were simply too many wrestlers to keep track. He said there were over 100 wrestlers at the event, 30 of which were from Superior.
Wrestlers are divided up into four classes: beginners, novice, middle, and junior.
The beginner age group is 7 to 8 years old; the novice is 9 to 10 years old; middle is 11 to 12 years old; and the juniors are 13 to 15 years old.
Crabb said that the beginner and novice competitors went first and were put into a “red/blue” competition.
Grapplers were divided up by weight class and then paired up with another wrestler. After their match, the winner went on to wrestle the winner of another match, and the loser went on to wrestle the loser of another match.
“It gives the kid an opportunity to get a win,” Crabb said.
The middle and junior grapplers wrestled during the second half of the evening. Crabb said they were put into a round robin competition for their matches.
Each grappler was paired up with another one from the same weight class. Crabb said that each grappler got to wrestle twice, and some of them got three matches in before the evening was over.
Crabb said that he was pleased with the team's performance Thursday night.
“Some of the younger kids did a pretty good job; they won some matches they might not have won before,” Crabb said.
All of the matches were refereed by Superior High School wrestlers. The high school wrestling team is required to ref a few matches for Little Guy tournaments in order to letter in wrestling.
“All those kids have come up through Little Guy wrestling,” Crabb said. “We require our high school kids to ref for a couple duals a season to kind of give back.”
Crabb said that since wrestling can be such a grueling sport, he does not anticipate that all of his Little Guy wrestlers will continue wrestling in high school. “We're lucky to get three or four every year that go on to high school,” Crabb said.
The next match for the Superior Little Guys wrestlers will be the Valley Tournament at Thompson Falls Saturday. The Valley Tournament is the first of two tournaments that wrestlers need to perform well in to qualify for the Western Montana Championships in Missoula.
In order for novice wrestlers to advance to the final tournament, they have to place in the top four in their weight class. Grapplers in the middle class have to place in the top eight to advance, and all juniors go to the final tournament.
Crabb said he is spending time in practice getting his wrestlers ready for the upcoming tournaments.
“We're trying to work on what we're not very good at,” Crabb said.