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Blue Ponies edged by GFH Bison in season-opening Havre Wrestling Invitational
Havre High's Logan Pleninger, left, takes Butte Central's Clay Stillwagon down during the Havre Invitational 126-pound championship match Saturday afternoon at the HHS gymnasium. Pleninger was one of five champions for the Blue Ponies.
Havre High freshman Jazz Schroeder, top, tangles with an opponent during a match in Saturday's Havre Invite at the HHS gymnasium.
Havre High's Grayson Brenna is bloodied during his overtime 132-pound title match with with GFH's Jaren Komac Saturday at the Havre Invitational.
Havre High senior Gunner Aageson, left, battles a Cut Bank grappler during Saturday's Havre Invitational at the HHS gymnasium.
Havre senior Jace Billy holds on to Chinook's Kevin Young during the 205-pound title match at Saturday's Havre Invite.
Havre's Travis Adams, left, takes down a Cut Bank opponent on his way to the Havre Invitational heavyweight championship Saturday at the HHS gymnasium.
Blue Pony freshman Tyler Schaub, left, cradles Chester/J-I's Cory Kelly during a 182-pound match Saturday at the Havre Invitational.
Havre's T.J. Lovenguth, right, looks to get away from a rival during Saturday's Havre Invitational at the HHS gymnasium.
As always, the Havre Invitational was an extremely competitive wrestling meet to open the 2014-15 season for the Havre Blue Ponies and other local area teams. That fact was a given.
And so was a battle between the defending state champions in both Class A and Class AA, as Havre and Great Falls High fought it out for first place in a showdown that lived to expectations Saturday afternoon at the HHS gymnasium.
Despite being the home team, the Ponies could not quite defeat Great Falls High and finished second, barely losing to a Bison team that racked up 230 points compared to the 223 points Havre was able to score. CMR finished third with 179.5 points and Lewistown was a distant fourth with 111 points.
The Bison had an incredible 14 wrestlers finish in the top six in the tournament, with five wrestlers coming away with individual titles. Great Falls also had three wrestlers finish second, two in third, three in fourth and one in fifth.
Yet, the Ponies, who finished second, actually had more wrestlers make it into the top six with five individual champions, two second-place finishers, three in third place, two in fourth, one in fifth and three in sixth. HHS was also without one of its biggest guns, sophomore Parker Filius, who is sidelined with an injury.
"I thought the kids wrestled good, you have to get the first weekend under your belt whether it's good or bad and I am pleased with it," HHS head coach Scott Filius said. "We had a lot of matches that we turned around today from yesterday (Friday)."
The biggest turnaround of the day came from Havre sophomore Jase Stokes, who was able to knock off Garrett Chapel of Libby, an individual state champion at 170 pounds last year, by pinning him in 2:16. The win was significant for Stokes for two reasons. The first was that Stokes moved up to 170 pounds this year after winning a state championship at a lower weight a year ago. The second was the fact that Chapel handily defeated Stokes in round-robin action Friday.
"The first match I couldn't really do anything on top and so in the second match I just got that cradle in tight and put it away," Stokes said. "He beat me pretty bad like 15-4 or something like that, so I was motivated to come back and beat him. It feels really good, and it was a good way to start the season.
"He didn't wrestle his best (on Friday)," Filius said of Stokes. "He wrestled much better today."
In addition to Stokes, Havre had four other wrestlers who finished first in their respective weight classes, headlined by defending state champion Jace Billy, who pinned Kevin Young of Chinook in 2:22 to win the 205-pound weight class.
Keegan Kennelly, who finished second at state a season ago, got his season off to a solid start taking first prize in the 120-pound weight class for Havre, after pinning Keaton Anderson of Cut Bank in 2:50. Logan Pleninger also finished first for the Ponies at 126 pounds, by way of a 7-4 decision over Clay Stillwagon of Butte Central. Pleninger beat Stillwagon, a two-time defending state champ twice on the weekend.
Havre's other individual champion was Travis Adams, who pinned all three of his opponents Saturday en route to the final, where he pinned Justin Pfiefer of Cut Bank to wrap up the heavyweight championship.
Yet, the most exciting match of the day was between Jarren Kormac of Great Falls and Grayson Brenna of Havre. The two battled it out for four extra-overtime sessions before Komac was finally able to score the winning point, giving himself the win thanks to a 1-0 decision. Both Komac and Brenna are two of the top individual wrestlers in Montana, and they’ll go head-to-head many more times this season.
The only other Pony to finish second besides Brenna was junior Kody Pribyl, who was pinned by Gage Bentley of Great Falls in 5:06.
HHS also boasted three wrestlers who finished in third place with Gunner Aageson at 160 pounds, Dylan Stewart at 126 pounds and Tyler Schaub at 182 pounds.
Ryan Stewart notched a fourth-place finish at 103 pounds as did JayR Caplette at 182 pounds. Dane Flammond finished fifth at 138 pounds, and rounding things out for Havre were John Chinadle, Brian Ramirez and Eddy Ducharme, who each finished sixth at 182 pounds, 205 pounds and heavyweight, respectively.
"Right now we are a little behind where I would like us to be," Filius said. "But even if we were farther ahead I would want to be even more ahead anyways, so that's continuous."
The Ponies will be back in action quickly as they will head to Butte Thursday to compete in the Butte Central Mixer before taking part in the Mining City Duals Friday and Saturday.
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