Thompson Falls wrestlers come so close to having great meet

Matt Unrau

What was an ok weekend for Thompson Falls wrestlers was very close to being a stellar weekend if not for losing a pair of tiebreaking duals.

“We had a very good chance to be in the top four, we lost a dual to Columbia Falls, who took third. We were up in the match, but ended up losing,” says Coach Colby Cline. “If we had beat them that would have put us in a really good pool the next day.” Thompson Falls lost to Columbia Falls 39 points to 42.

Still, Cline is pleased with how his team performed. They finished in 12th place out of 18 teams and competed well against Columbia Falls and the fifth place team.

With one of his best wrestlers, Richard Lyons, sidelined with an upper chest injury the Bluehawks also tied in two other duals against Hamilton and St. Ignatius. They ended up losing both of these duals due to criteria. Cline estimates that if Lyons was able to wrestle they would have been able to get enough of a boost to push them past both teams.

With Class A and AA schools also present at Ronan, Cline was still pleased to be wrestling against tough competition to prepare his kids for the largest meet of the year in Choteau.

“We learned that we can compete with the bigger schools fairly well without the numbers that they have,” says Cline referring to his smaller number of experienced wrestlers. “If you wrestle tough competition you have to make yourself better or you get thumped on.”

One wrestler in particular rose to the challenge this past weekend. Senior Tanner Gascon was able to exact revenge against Leir, a wrestler from Libby who had beaten him last year. Also Eric Milner finished 5-0 on the JV team for Thompson Falls.

The close finish against conference foe, St. Ignatius, showed Cline another fact about the division this year.

“This year is the closest that the division has been. I’m in my eighth year here and this is the closest it has been ever,” says Cline who still believes that it will come down to Thompson Falls, Florence and Mission who will vie for the divisional title.

This next weekend Thompson Falls will travel to Choteau for the biggest meet of the year. The meet will boast between 500-600 wrestlers and shows teams where they stand at the state level.

“I’ve always felt if you place in this tourney than that is usually a place or two from where you would place at state,” says Cline. Only two or three teams from the B-C ranks will not be at the meet most notably Glasgow.