Lights place seven in Powell

The Montana State University-Northern wrestling team took part in its second tournament of the young season this past Saturday. The Lights were in Powell, Wyo., for the Trapper Open hosted by Northwest College.

Northern placed seven wrestlers in the top four of Saturday’s tournament, which saw much the same competition as last weekend’s Cowboy Open in Laramie.

Leading the way for MSU-N were junior Jared Miller and sophomore Toby Cheff. Miller reached the finals of the 174-pound bracket before losing, while Cheff reached the 197-pound championship match, ultimately taking second place. Northern also got a third-place finish from Ethan Hinebauch at 165 pounds, as well as third-place finishes from Aaron LaFarge at 133 and Cameron Neiss at 141. Riley Miller (125) and Mickey Cheff (157) both placed fourth in the tournament.

“Things went a lot better for us this weekend and you could see a ton of improvement in our wrestling,” MSU-N head coach Tyson Thivierge said. “Guys are starting to look a ton better and getting back that fighting spirit. We started the year a little slow, but they are back on track. At this tournament, we stepped it up and wrestled hard, won some close matches, cleaned up mistakes we were making and just got back to wrestling tough. We still look forward to getting better week by week, and I feel we are back on track with that.”

Now comes Northern’s first big showdown of the new season. Thursday night, the Lights will take on rival UGF at the McLaughlin Center in Great Falls.