Braves still city's best
Flathead’s Caleb Piasecki keeps Glacier’s Lucas Mantel arms tied in a 119-pound match during Thursday evening’s crosstown dual at Flathead.
Flathead’s Caleb Allen-Schmid pulls Glacier’s Travis Woodland up by his leg before hitting the mat in a 160-pound match.
Flathead’s Connor Thomas grits his teeth as he wraps his arms around Glacier’s Dan Gilbert in a heavyweight match.
Crosstown III went pretty much as expected for Glacier wrestling coach Mark Fischer.
“We went through the lineup last night (Wednesday) and scored it 47-24,” he said.
“And it was that close.”
Almost to the numbers.
Flathead won its third straight crosstown battle with rival Glacier on Thursday 46-21 on Senior Night at FHS before a pumped-up crowd that came pretty close to filling up the old gymnasium.
The Braves won the wars on the mat with the Wolfpack 11-3 and forfeited at 98. Flathead totaled three pins — Jeremiah Gaiser (145), Larry Francis (171) and Travis Ozegovich (215) — two major decisions — Steel Hahn (135) and Connor Thomas (285) — one tech fall — Joaquin Calderon (125) — and five decisions — Suny Cheff (112), Caleb Piasecki (119), Jacob Egley (130), Zach Diest (152) and Caleb Allen Schmid (160).
Glacier’s Zach Barber (105) and Shane St. Onge (140) won by pin, and Boyce Ballard (189) won by decision.
“A lot of them (matches), we wrestled with them,” Fischer said of the five decisions.
“We’re just not getting the upsets yet.”
Fischer said Ballard turned in a great effort, pulling out a tough 7-2 decision over Trevor Beaman.
“That was a huge win for us tonight,” Fischer said.
“He (Ballard) wrestled a real solid match.”
The dual opened at 105 with Barber giving the Wolfpack a quick 6-0 lead on a second-period pin.
Flathead then used back-to-back decisions by Cheff and Piasecki in some tightly contested matches that really fired up the fans to tie it up at 6-6. Calderon, who normally wrestles at 130, dropped down 125 and responded with an 18-1 tech fall to put the Braves on top for good at 11-6.
Flathead gradually pulled away from there.
“A lot of tough matches,” Flathead coach Mark Owen said.
“That’s a huge thing for Glacier to come out and compete extremely tough.
“I think it’s neat,” Owen said of the fan support.
“To have two teams this tough in the town of Kalispell, that says a lot about this city.”
Fischer agreed.
“It was fun,” he said.
“This is a wrestling town. It’s a neat place to have this type of atmosphere.”
Owen said his squad was ready to wrestle well before the competition began.
“The guys get jacked up for it,” he said of performing before a big, vocal crowd.
“They were really excited even before they stepped on the mat.”
Owen was equally impressed with the healthy rivalry the two schools enjoy. That was displayed very early when Piasecki embraced Mantel in the middle of the mat after their hard-fought, crowd-pleasing match — the second one of the night. Piasecki took a 7-3 lead with 34 seconds left on a takedown, but Mantel battled to the end by pulling off a reveral with two seconds showing.
“I thought the sportsmanship was really exceptional. You have two guys that go out there and compete real hard and both wanted to win. But when they stepped off the mats, they were still friendly to each other. All these kids have grown up with each other,” he said.
Owen said the Braves benefitted from the efforts of two freshmen — Cheff and Egley.
“Both stepped up in the lineup and got two wins,” he said.
“That was awesome.”
Owen said Senior Night is normally reserved for the final home match of the season, which will be Saturday with Helena High and Helena Capital. Not this year.
“Our senior kids wanted it to be for this one, which I thought was great,” he said.
“They (seniors) are having a great season. Their leadership is getting us to where we’re going. We’re heading in the right direction.”
98 — Alex Mitchell, G, won by forfeit; 105 — Zach Barber, G, pinned Kaileb Liehr, 2:57; 112 — Suny Cheff, F, dec. Jackson Barber, 2-0; 119 — Caleb Piasecki, F, dec. Lucas Mantel, 7-5; 125 — Joaquin Calderon, F, won by tech fall over Grant Tafoya, 18-1; 130 — Jacob Egley, F, dec. Nick Iavicolli, 9-3; 135 — Steel Hahn, F, won by maj. dec. over Tyler Hendrickson, 10-0; 140 — Shane St. Onge, G, pinned Austin Bowen, 2:59; 145 — Jeremiah Gaiser, F, pinned Paul Iavicolli, 4:52; 152 — Zach Deist, F, dec. Lucas Cummings, 4-0; 160 — Caleb Allen-Schmid, F, dec. Travis Woodland, 11-6; 171 — Larry Francis, F, pinned Logan Clay, 3:03; 189 — Boyce Ballard, G, dec. Trevor Beaman, 7-2; 215 — Travis Ozegovich, F, pinned Randy Martin, :58; 285 — Connor Thomas, F, maj. dec. over Dan Gilbert, 12-3.