Flathead 2nd at Mining City Duals
Daily Inter Lake | Daily Inter-Lake | UPDATED 1 day, 9 hours AGO
BUTTE — The Flathead Brave Brawlers’ run of Jim Street Mining City Duals championships ended at four but they certainly gave it a shot.
Two-time defending AA champion Billings West beat the Brawlers 50-22 in the final dual Saturday at the Butte Civic Center; Flathead went 5-1 at the tournament.
“So proud of this team,” coach Jeff Thompson sid. “West is just so sold up and down their lineup but we gave them our best.”
The Brawlers beat Billings Senior 52-24 and Butte High 40-28 to advance in Saturday’s championship bracket. On Friday they handled Frenchtown 59-18, Helena Capital 58-23 and Three Forks 66-17 in pool competition. Frenchtown, which went 2-1 in Flathead’s pool, joined the Brawlers in the championship bracket.
Kellen Downing (138 pounds) and Caleb Poe-Hatten (118) scored pins against West, and Hunter Arriaga (144), Brett Chivers (157) and Colton Conover (175) won their matches. Arriaga went 4-0 in Butte and the rest were 5-0; Arriaga, Downing and Poe-Hatten were named outstanding wrestlers for the Duals.
The Golden Bears came up with six falls and two technical falls in the final.
“The Mining City Duals are always an early-season blueprint of what’s out there for competition,” Thompson said. “The Braves most definitely are in the mix for a team trophy come February. We have already seen tremendous growth from last week.
“Conor and Liam LeDuc, and Kohen Rilley, only had one loss this weekend. Conor is just really good at 190. Caleb Poe-Hatten beat two state championships this weekend. Aiden Lake won a match against Senior that put 37 points on the board.”
Glacier’s young squad went 1-4 in Butte, beating Missoula Hellgate 59-24 on Friday before dropping duals with Butte (59-20) and Billings Skyview (53-30). In Saturday’s consolation action the Wolfpack lost narrowly to Polson (41-39) and fell to Three Forks (57-21).
“Our lineup at this point doesn’t bode well for team scores, but we some some great experience gains for the team,” Glacier coach Mark Fischer said. “Matt Ahner, Zander Fuehr and Noah Horn continued their win streaks and remain undefeated.
“Before this weekend we had six kids in the lineup that had never won a match in their life or high school. Four of them got their first wins this weekend.”
Columbia Falls went 0-2 on Saturday in the championship bracket. In Friday’s pool action the MatCats beat South Fremont (Idaho) 41-36 and Ronan 47-36, and also lost 73-5 to Billings West.
On Saturday they fell to Spokane’s Gonzaga Prep 50-28, and then to Frenchtown 46-30.
Blaise Cronk at 165 had an outstanding tournament, scoring three pins plus a technical fall against West for Columbia Falls’ only points in that dual. Kolbe Cronk went 4-1 at 138 as well.