The weekend proved to be tough on us as a team.  We went 4-2, losing to Belgrade and Dillon, and beating Anaconda, Hardin, Browning and Libby.

We lost some matches we shouldn’t have against Dillon. Dilan Starkel was leading his match 10 – 3 when he got caught and gave up the pin. Tyler Wheeler was having difficulty putting things together for the weekend and lost by 4 points. With those two losses and forfeiting three open weight classes, we couldn’t recover.

The Belgrade dual was ugly for us. Belgrade is a great wrestling team with very few weaknesses. We only managed four wins out of the 11 matches wrestled. One positive thing to come out of the Belgrade dual was Micky Cheff’s win at 145 over Cole Schram. Schram is one of the topped ranked kids in his weight class, and we haven’t had the chance, until this weekend, to face him.  The first period was scoreless and at the end of the second, Cheff led 3-1. A penalty point on us and an escape by Schram had the score tied at 3 in the final minute. Micky was able to secure a nice takedown, but Schram escaped in the final seconds leaving the score 5-4. Micky went undefeated in the duals, and is on the right path now for state; he’s wrestling tough.

Zach Robinson also went undefeated in the duals. He had four matchups; he pinned one, had one technical fall, and two major decisions. Zach has the potential to make it to the state finals, but he needs to start taking care of his weight better and gain some mental focus in the coming weeks. If he conquers this, he will do very well at the state tournament.

Toby Cheff went undefeated as well, though we sat him for one match. He had four matches and pinned each of them. Toby’s unorthodox style and flexibility make wrestling him very difficult.

Cameron Neiss was undefeated on the weekend as well. Cameron continues to wrestle well as he has all season. We never did get to meet up with Singleton from Miles City, who is the top ranked kid at 125. We would have liked to have that match up … he is a returning champion from last year.

Dilan Starkel and Marcus Schiele both ended up with one loss. Dilan went 5-1, losing his only match after getting caught and pinned while leading the match 10-3. If we meet up with that kid again, we will know what to stay out of.

Marcus Schiele went 5-1 as well. His loss came when wrestling Belgrade’s Prickett, a top ranked wrestler at 189. Marcus posted some very good wins over his other competitors pinning 3 of his 5 wins. Marcus had a good weekend.

Overall, we didn’t wrestle up to our potential. I think we were tired from a difficult past couple of weeks and in need of a little break.  We’ve been on the road an awful lot this month and it takes a lot out of a person. Next week we have duals on Thursday and Friday against Columbia Falls and Polson (both away) and then we have a solid week before divisional. We will have our lineup more complete at this time, with injured wrestlers back and the team will be ready for the final weeks of the season.