TFalls Wrestles ready to hit mat

Danielle Switalski

Thompson Falls is ready to hit the mat again this year with the start of the 2009-2010 wrestling season.

The wrestling team has a fairly high standard to live up to after last year’s successful season as they made it to Divisional.  The team lost ten of their wrestlers from last year with five graduating seniors and five kids that moved out of Thompson Falls.  Despite, these losses, however, the Blue Hawks do have some strong, returning players.  Shawn Shacci is returning after placing third in Divisionals last year.  Tanner Gasken has been to Divisonals three times and is brining his experience back to the team.  Austin and Dakotta Kinser are back as sophomores this year after placing in Divisionals as freshman last season,

Although the team lost a chunk of wrestlers, there are still 20 kids who have signed up for the team, more than usual in their conference.

Since the team is fairly young this year, Head Coach Colby Cline has been doing a lot of conditioning work during practices so the kids are ready for their six minute matches.

“Six minutes of wrestling is a lot different than a forty minute basketball game, no breaks and no time outs, so you have to be prepared for that and we are using the weight room a lot more this year,” said Cline.

Cline said the key to winning the match is desire, heart and technique.  He said a lot of the close matches comes down to who has the desire to win more.  The Blue Hawks usually score most of their points with takedowns, which is something the team has been really focusing on in practice and will continue to perfect throughout the year.

As far as competition is concerned, Florence is picked as the favorite, with Mission and Arlee not far behind.  Cline said these will be the three teams to beat.

Thompson Falls’ first wrestling tournament is this Saturday in Polson.  Cline said this will be one of the hardest tournaments of the year as they will meet much bigger schools at the tournament who will have up to 70 wrestlers on the team, however the kids are ready for their upcoming matches.

“It’s a tough one to start for the kids.  The kids look at it not as they will get beat, but as a challenge, and try to beat the bigger schools because you don’t have anything to lose when you wrestle them,” said Cline.