Brave Brawlers sitting on first-day lead

Flathead’s Brave Brawlers are enjoying their home court, or mats, if getting eight wrestlers into the semifinals of the State AA wrestling tournament means anything.

Towards the end of a long Friday — there were still wrestlebacks going on as of 10:30 p.m. — Flathead led the team race with 129 points. Billings Senior was second with 107 and defending state champion Great Falls was at 97, one point ahead of Butte.

Braves’ coach Jeff Thompson was pleased overall. His assistant coach, Dallas Stuker, figured the team would be in good shape if it was within 15 points of Senior after the first two rounds; instead the Brawlers were ahead.

They’d hoped to be tied at the end of the quarterfinals and first round of wrestlebacks, and ended up 22 points in front.

“This team really stepped up,” Thompson said, just after Chase Youso became the seventh quarterfinal winner for Flathead, scoring a pin at 170 pounds. “We were a little nervous that we were taking some boys into the state tournament, but they proved us wrong. These boys are men.”

Of the eight semifinalists the most surprising is Logan Stansberry, a sixth-seeded freshman who rallied past Butte’s Kyler Raiha 8-7 in the quarters.

“Wild card,” Thompson said. “He’s been a wrestler, though, that’s been on the map since he was 5 years old. I think he’s just a tournament wrestler.

“Stansberry took him down, cut him, let him back up and took down again and rode him out for the win. What a cool thing. We had a tough loss from Cade Gardner at 120 in the first round, and we had Logan step up and get those points right back for us.”

Ethan Freund (126), Asher Kemppainen (132), Anders Thompson (138), Fin Nadeau (152), Noah Poe-Hatten (160) and Ryan Nelson (182) are the other semifinalists.

Twenty-two of Flathead’s 23 wrestlers won matches Friday, and Nelson and Noah Poe-Hatten won narrow decisions to make the semis. Those 50-50 wins help take the edge off quarterfinal losses by Gunnar Thompson and Cade Troupe.

Troupe had reversed and flipped his opponent, Great Falls’ Irish Furthmyer, to lead their 145-pound quarterfinal 6-2. Then Furthmyer did the exact same thing in the final 30 seconds and won 7-6.

“That was a heart-breaker,” Thompson said. “He’s been wrestling so well all year along and just kind of got caught in an ugly scramble and it didn’t turn out his way.

“But he came right back and got a win the next round. His spirits are high again and bringing home a third place is his goal.”

The semifinal round and second round of wrestlebacks are set for 10 a.m. today. The finals are scheduled for 3:30 p.m., but will likely start later because the meet is using just two mats.

Glacier’s Teegan Vasquez (120 pounds), Hunter Ketchem (120) and Thomas Klepps (170) of Billings Senior, Avery Allen (132) of Bozeman, Jesse Aarness (126) of Billings West, Hunter Meinzen (160) of Missoula Big Sky, Noah Kovick of Helena Capital (205) and Elijah Davis of Great Falls (285) are all in range of consecutive individual titles.

For Allen it would be four straight; for Meinzen, who has a loss to Poe-Hatten this season, it would be three.

Vasquez and Ketchem are a possible finals’ matchup, and Poe-Hatten and Meinzen are on opposite sides of the bracket as well.