Bluehawks come out flat at home meet

Matt Unrau

The Ted Kato tournament, which was supposed to give the home team a chance to showcase their prowess and skills was anything but as the Thompson Falls team fell flat and performed far below their own expectations.

“I think the whole team and the coaching staff was kind of disspointed in how we finished,” says Head Coach Colby Cline. He estimates that there were six matches that the team lost in the tournament that they should have won compared to only one surprise win by the team.

“I figured that we would be right there, first or second with Florence and it was going to be pretty close,” says Cline. “If we had wrestled to our potential we would have been right there.”

The Bluehawks ended up coming in third at the meet behind Florence and Mission-Charlo. Their 115.5 points was more than 40 points behind the first place Florence Eagles who had 5 first place finishes compared to Thompson Falls’ one.

Along with coming out flat, the team is nursing a team-total of five or six shoulder injuries, which really handicapp a wrestler’s ability, more so than any other injury.

Chief among those injuries is Richard Lyon’s collarbone injury. The week before he missed a meet and despite wrestling in this meet and coming in second place, Coach Cline says the injury was swollen again on Saturday and he may not wrestle again until Divisionals.

It was a sore meet for Lyons as he said he was wrestling defensively in order to keep his collarbone from popping out again.

“I’m just trying to get a couple points lead and coast it out. I don’t want to mess it up again,” says Lyons. In the championship match he lost a close one to Kolter Beneitone of Florence 7-10.

The wrestlers who had the best meet for the team were Eric Hilety who took home first place in 189 lb. and Levy Dowell who finished third in 171 lb. Dowell beat Noxon’s Caplen Weare 7-6 in the third and fourth place match. It marked the first time that Dowell beat Weare in a year that saw Weare win all of their matchups by pin.

Hilety dominated Noxon’s Rocky Fisher to win his championship match 14-3.

“He wrestled very well, especially in the championship match,” says Cline. “He handled him.” Fisher had beaten Pake Morris of Drummond in the semifinal round and the night before at the mixer Morris had beaten Hilety.

This next week Thompson Falls will once again be wrestling at home on Thursday against Arlee and Superior and then travel to Darby on Friday and Saturday. Right now, the coach faces a dilema as to whether he will rest his wrestlers in order to conquer their nagging injuries or to keep them wrestling in order to keep them sharp. He plans to feel out his strategy in the practices this next week.