State AA wrestling coming to Flathead
The State AA wrestling tournament will be in Kalispell after all, the Montana High School Association announced Friday.
Mark Beckman, executive director for the MHSA, sent out a short press release at 11 a.m. that confirmed the State AA wrestlers will convene at Flathead High School March 5-6.
The MHSA also backtracked on its plan to have playoff-only State AA basketball tournaments. Now a combined boys’ and girls’ AA tournament will be held March 10-13 at Great Falls’ Four Seasons Arena.
The wrestling news comes one week after the MHSA delayed a decision on where AA would be held. The activities directors at Kalispell’s two AA schools, Bryce Wilson at Flathead and Mark Dennehy at Glacier, had hoped their community would host both the AA boys’ and the all-class girls’ tournaments.
The girls will compete at brand-new Lockwood High School, just southeast of Billings, Feb. 19-20.
Flathead gets to host the boys.
“It’s just going to be at Flathead, and it’s only going to be on two mats,” Flathead wrestling coach Jeff Thompson said Friday. “And we’ll have two sessions: The 103 through 145 classes will be in the morning and the 152 to heavyweight in the afternoon.
“All warmups will be in the new (Boyle) gym, and we’ll use our wrestling room as well, so there’s enough space for all the teams to be separated.”
Beyond that the Kalispell teams get to stay home: They’ve had a lot of years of 8-hour bus rides to Billings, and now it’s the other way around.
“That is a really nice advantage to be able to stay in our own beds and not worry about all the details that go into travel,” Glacier coach Ross Dankers said. “I’m excited for our youth wrestlers – hopefully we can get some of the next generation to be able to come and watch.
“I always thought that was an advantage for the Billings kids; the young kids got to come in and towel-tap and experience that atmosphere.”
“We’re just so excited to be able to host State,” Thompson added. “Even in a crazy year like we’re having, it’s going to be great for our wrestling community, to have it here in Kalispell. It’s going to be nice for our own kids to sleep in their own beds and eat their mamas’ cooking.”
Thompson also credited the administrations as well as new Flathead County Health Officer Joe Russell.
“The ball’s in his court with this,” Thompson said of Russell. “And he took it on. It’s great.
“It’s a great wrestling community we have here. So much support. It’s going to be fun. We’re excited for the opportunity.”
The State AA basketball tournament decision came after an outcry from parents.
“There was a lot of unrest with a number of parents throughout the state,” Dennehy noted. “We saw that and I think that led to some changes.”
There won’t be divisional tournaments for AA. To qualify for state teams have play-in games – a system that was in place from 1989-90 season through 2016-2017. There will be no byes into state: the Western AA’s No. 1 seed will host No. 8, No. 2 will host No. 7, and so on.
The MHSA also announced the State A-B swim meet is March 6 in Polson.
The biggest news is about wrestling. The delay in the decision came because the divisional wrestling format had been undecided. The usual seeding tournament won’t happen; wrestlers will be seeded off their divisional record.
Twenty wrestlers will qualify for state, and the bottom four seeds from the Western AA and Eastern AA will compete for four spots in the 16-wrestler bracket, Flathead AD Wilson said.
Flathead’s Brave Brawlers were second at last year’s State AA meet, and Billings Senior was a close third. Billings West also has a strong team, as does defending champion Great Falls High.
“For once, Billings is going to have to make that big road trip up here,” Thompson said.