Where the best in the west go to wrestle, Superior’s Turner Milender proved to be the best of all B-C grapplers competing at 165 pounds last week in Butte, working his way to the Western B-C championship, leading a contingent of five Bobcats wrestlers earning their ways to this week’s Montana All-Class wrestling meet at the Metra in Billings.

The Montana All-Class meet begins Thursday in the Big Sky Country’s biggest high school wrestling bash of any season and wraps up Saturday in the Magic City.

Dylon Arbogast wrestled his way to sixth place at 132 pounds, Wade Calloway (144) and Sam Doughty (150) both earned seventh place spots, and Cael Crabb (138) battled his way to ninth place to join Milender and also earn the right to fight on in Billings this week.

Ethan Durovey also wrestled very well for the Bobcats at 157 in Butte but was not quite able to earn a State B-C berth.

The Western and Eastern B-C sometimes adjust State B-C entry numbers from each side based on the state-wide participation numbers and previous results at each weight class to arrive at a field of 16 grapplers in each bracket at Billings. It’s called the EDQ formula and it’s a means for better representation for worthy wrestlers in the state meets.

“I was impressed with how the kids performed, five out of our six qualified so we are happy with that,” Superior coach Charlie Crabb said. “That was a very tough tournament and all our boys wrestled well. It’s not easy getting through something like this, it takes a lot of wrestling if you end up in the wrestle-backs.”

Avoiding the wrestle-backs challenge, Milender took care of business in his main draw in Butte after coming in seeded No. 4 at 165. “Turner missed the early part of the season with injury and ended up not getting a lot of matches in at 165 and didn’t get seeded that well,” Crabb said. "But he was ready for it last week, wrestled when it counted.”

Milender was rather dominant in asserting his authority at 165 in the Western B-C last week, pinning L. Johnson from Shelby in 4:00 of that first round match, scoring a 12-3 major decision win over T. Raines of Cut Bank in the quarterfinals and pinning L. Fuller of

Whitehall in the semifinals. The first and second round matches were wrestled Friday and the semis and finals Saturday.

Facing his toughest challenge of the weekend in the final, Milender won by 8-6 decision over Fairfield’s B. Lau in the championship match to claim his Western B-C title, becoming Butte’s king of the mountain on the podium at 165.

    SUPERIOR GRAPPLER Dylon Arbogast in action at the Western B-C divisional meet in Butte. (Kami Milender photo)
  

    SUPERIOR’S WADE CALLOWAY works hard to keep control of his opponent during action at the Western B-C meet in Butte last week. (Kami Milender photo)
  

    ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN – Superior’s Turner Milender stands atop the podium with the other place-winners at 165 pounds in the Western B-C meet Saturday. (Kami Milender photo)