Plains wrestlers get first taste of tournament

Kenneth Beech, Cole Goodwin and Ted Beech left their mark at the Superior Invitational arriving at the medal stand in their first tournament of the season held last Saturday. The Savage Horsemen scored 46 team points to finish 12th in a field of 14 teams.

“It’s kind of like herding cats, because the [younger] kids don’t know what they’re doing, they don’t know where they’re supposed to be,” Plains-Hot Springs head coach Kenny Margerrison said. “There’s a lot to see and watch and lots of good wrestling going on all the time so it’s kind of overwhelming.”

The tournament field included: Frenchtown, Libby, Eureka, Arlee, Thompson Falls, St. Ignatius-Charlo, Cut Bank, Noxon, Superior, Kalispell, Glacier JV, Browning, Missouila Hellgate and Plains-Hot Springs.

“It was a nice tournament to start with because it wasn’t so huge that everybody just got thumped on, Margerrison said. “We still have lots of stuff to work on of course, but across the board our kids did pretty well. We were happy with it.”

Margerrison remained positive that his team showed signs of improvement this weekend as wrestlers participated in multiple matches on both Friday and Saturday. Many even wrestled informally in exhibition matches after having been eliminated from medal contention.

Kenneth Beech, 119 pounds, finished second. His only loss was to Cody Ishler of Frenchtown in the championship match. Ishler was the state champion at that weight class last year.

Goodwin, 135, finished third. His only loss of the tournament came in overtime to Scotty Gilleard of Mission.

“It was a very very close match. It was probably the best match I’ve ever seen Cole wrestle,” Margerrison said. “That’s definitely a winnable one too, we’re going to correct a few things there and hopefully down the road that’ll go the other way.”

Ted Beech has a strong showing in his first tournament, finishing third in the 130-pound division, despite being sick for most of the week.

“It’s amazing how far he has come in the last four weeks. He’s picking stuff up like crazy,” Margerisson said. “For him to take third place was awesome. I mean we were on pins and needles all day because he wrestled really well.”

Some of the younger Savage Horsemen wrestled particulary well.

Giorgi Malakmadze, 145 pounds, who was coming off a knee injury, got his first win of the year, and freshman heavyweight Ben Gorham, won all three of his exhibition matches after losing out of the tournament.

“Ben progressed exponentially this weekend,” Margerrison said. “He had some really good expedition matches and figured a few things out. It was really good for him.”

Senior Kolby Chisholm, sat out this week to rest an injured neck and although he has yet to be given the final go ahead by his doctors, it appears as though he will be wrestling with his teammates next week as the team participates in a mixer on Friday and then in the Buzz Lucey Tournament on Saturday.

“It’ll be a long weekend for us,” Margerrison said. “Most of our kids will get seven or eight matches this weekend so it’s a lot of wrestling.”

The Buzz Lucey Tournament will likely field teams from Idaho, Canada and some more farmiliar teams such as Frenchtown, and Glacier and Flathead’s JV programs.

“We really appreciate anyone that can come watch us,” Margerrison said. “We had quite a few fans over there this weekend that even didn’t have kids in the program so that was great to see.”