Ozegovich turns in gritty effort

GREAT FALLS - No whining, no fussing, no coulda, shoulda, wouldas.

At least not from Flathead High School's Travis Ozegovich.

Ozegovich, the 215-pounder on the Braves' wrestling team, has ground his way this weekend for a pair of wins and five hard-won team points at the Class AA state tournament at CM Russell High School.

Points in the 2011 Class AA state tournament are precious - spread between six or seven fairly evenly matched teams.

Ozegovich had reason to believe as wrestling season began this winter that he might be scoring a lot of points for the Braves during the state meet - the kind of points that state champions rack up.

But Ozegovich's senior season took a rough detour when he partially tore his MCL while wrestling his good friend Boyce Ballard of Glacier during the crosstown dual in early January.

At first, the Flathead coaches were told Ozegovich would be back in a few weeks.

But the knee just would not heal.

"It was supposed to be season-ending ... I'm not really supposed to be here, but I'm doing what I can for the team," Ozegovich said after pinning Missoula Big Sky's Jake Nachtigal in the evening wrestle back round.

"We thought we were going to get him back two or three weeks before divisional. But every time he went (to the doctor), they said he wasn't ready yet. We finally got him back the week before divisional," said Flathead coach Matt Owen.

"It's really hard to miss that much time. He's just not there shape-wise," Owen said.

Ozegovich agreed with Owen's assessment of his conditioning.

"Conditioning is my hardest part right now. I couldn't run a whole lot. I did a lot of lifting though," he said.

"I stayed after practice a lot (after he was medically cleared)," he added.

"I really think if he was in great shape right now, he would be right in the mix of bringing home a title this weekend," Owen said.

"But he's out there competing hard and I think he still has a great shot of maybe coming away with a third. It seems like every time he steps out there he's getting a little tougher and getting a little more wind," the coach said.

"He's doing an awesome job. He's got a great attitude. He knows he's had a rough go of it and he's plugging away. I think he's going to have a great end of the year," the coach said.

"It's really hard when you are missing that much practice time to get out there and feel like yourself and be able to wrestle six hard minutes. If he had a full season under his belt it would be a different story."

Despite the difficulties, Ozegovich won his first-round match with a last second takedown.

"That was crazy. I had to put out a second effort. If I didn't do that, I knew the rest of my tournament wasn't going to be pretty. I gave it everything I had and it turned out for the best," he said.

He fell to Glacier's Mack Sutherland in the second round, but battled back with the pin over Nachtigal to go 2-1 on the day.

He will face Billings Skyview's Jacob Berry first today.