The Daily Inter Lake

Braves three-peat in wrestling

BILLINGS - They did it again.

And they made it look oh, so easy.

Flathead High School's wrestlers repeated as Class AA state champions for a third-straight season on Saturday with another dominating performance.

The Braves left the mats at MetraPark with a state record 410 team points. Billings Skyview was a distant second, 264 1/2, and Great Falls High third, 223 1/2.

Winning individual titles for FHS were Tanner Beaman at 130, Brian Ham at 135, Tyler Wells at 152, David Lau at 160 and Luke Fischer at 171.

Ham was a state champ last year at 119.

Flathead took a school- and state record-tying 29 wrestlers to this event.

The Braves went 20-0 in dual competition this season and were perfect in tournament action as well, taking titles in three states - Montana, Idaho and Wyoming.

FHS is No. 1 in the Northwest State Ranking by Wrestling USA magazine, No. 10 in the nation by Amateur Wrestling News and No. 14 by WIN magazine.

Last year, Flathead won state with a 347 1/2 point total. It had 18 state placers, nine state finalists and three state champions. The points along with the number of state placers and state finalists were state records.

In 2004, Flathead won state with 325 points. The 2006 squad had 17 placers.

Flathead has captured state titles five times in the last six seasons.

The Braves finished divisional action with 11 individual champions.