RONAN — The Ronan wrestling team narrowly defeated a tough Columbia Falls squad on Thursday when it hosted a dual meet on its home turf in Ronan. Fighting to keep enough bodies in weight classes and come up with enough pins for the advantage, the Chiefs managed to top of the Matcats 39-33 in the end.

“Columbia Falls has some quality kids and presented us with some challenging matches. We substituted one of our JV wrestlers and bumped our heavier kids up a weight, helping us to fill one more weight class. But when you give up pins in dual competition, its tough to get the score to swing in your favor,” head coach Ryan Fisher wrote in an e-mail.

The Chiefs were able to swing things in their favor with pins by the likes of veteran senior Zach Robinson in the 112 lbs. weight class who pinned his opponent Justin Whitman in 1:59. Up-and-coming freshman Dilan Starkel put Columbia Falls wrestler Brady Richardson’s back to the mat in 2:28 for 125 lbs., junior Cameron Neiss who bested his opponent with a pin in 1:17 for 130 lbs., sophomore Cole McArthur who pinned Columbia Falls wrestler Russell Plevel in 1:16 for 153 lbs., Ronan football and wrestling go-to junior senior Micky Cheff who pinned Joe Gross in a four-minute battle for 160 lbs., and junior Tyler Wheeler, who drove his way to victory with another long-fought pin against Aaron Howland for 171 lbs.

Senior Tyson Noyes was the only Chief to win his match by decision. He won in exciting fashion by a score of 5-4 against Matcat Travis Pete.

The performance was overshadowed with three losses by pins to the Chiefs and twelve points in forfeits since Ronan is unable to feel its weight classes.

“When you give up twelve points in forfeits and 3 of 5 losses come by way of pin, were lucky to come away with a win; we can’t allow that to happen if our small team is to be successful in duals. I think we can eliminate those pin points and actually turn some of those matches in our favor next time around, but we have a lot to work on,” Fisher said.

Fisher said Noyes and sophomore Toby Cheff each met some of the states tougher competition in their matches and watching them wrestle pointed to a need to improve conditioning and work on scoring tactics.

“We can fix the conditioning aspect very easily and we’ve already started working on some different setups to help with scoring,” Fisher said.

Fisher said Toby was disadvantaged by his weight and the though freshman Riley Dennis went down by a pin in 5:14 in the 105 lbs. bout, the coach was pleased what he saw from the youngster in his first match of the season.

“All he needs is mat time; there is no better teacher,” Fisher Said.

The team was supposed to play in the Superior Invitational but couldn’t make it due to road conditions. Though Fisher said he would have appreciated the competition, he will be ready for this week with a new team and new weight classes filled.

Ronan duals Whitefish at 4 p.m. today in Ronan, then leaves that night for the Holiday Classic in Great Falls which takes place on Friday and Saturday.