Blue Ponies own the Mining City once again

The Mining City Duals are always highly competitive, especially with every Class AA wrestling team in attendance.

But once again, the Havre Blue Ponies made it look easy as they won their third consecutive championship in Butte.

During the two-day tournament in Butte, Havre posted a perfect 7-0 record and won all six of its matchups with Class AA schools. HHS locked up the title, its sixth overall in the event, by knocking off Billings Skyview in the championship round 49-21 Saturday.

“The kids wrestled great,” HHS head coach Scott Filius said. “It was a lot of fun. You find out a lot about each other when you travel together and I think that we have a great group of kids. We brought our junior varsity kids with us and they all got matches, and this group is fun to be around, these kids carry themselves very well.”

After easily dispatching of their group opponents Friday, defeating Missoula Hellgate 53-15, Belgrade 51-18 and Helena Captial 43-28, the Ponies turned their attention to the single-round elimination tournament, which started Saturday.

HHS opened the day with a win over Kalispell, 42-27 and then dispatched of Billings Senior 40-24 in the quarterfinals. The Ponies then cruised to a 29-point win over Missoula Sentinel, the team favored in Class AA this season, winning 43-14, before defeating Billings Skyview by 28 points to clinch the third consecutive Mining City triumph. With the 7-0 weekend, the Ponies have won 21 straight duals at the tournament.

Havre got a number of standout individual performances but some of the best came from Travis Adams (heavyweight), Tyler Schaub (205 pounds) and Jase Stokes (185), who all posted perfect 7-0 marks over the two days.

Parker Filius also had a solid weekend, posting a 6-1 record. Filius, a two-time state champion, is rarely defeated, but lost at the hands of Jarrett Deegan in the 152-pound weight class Friday when Havre defeated Belgrade. Deegan, who is committed to wrestle at Virginia Tech, defeated Filius 3-2 in a hard-fought battle between a pair of elite talents.

“It was great for both of those guys,” Scott Filius said. “A lot of times they will go through a whole weekend without really being challenged, so it was beneficial for both of them.”

Dane Flammond (160), Logan Pleniger (132) and Martin Wilkie (120/126) also finished with 6-1 records for the Ponies. Ryan Stewart (120 pounds) and Kody Pribyl (138) each lost twice, while Jazz Schroeder (145), Kollin Nystrom(145) and Walter White (170) all contributed to the winning effort with at least one victory over the course of the tournament.

“We were open at 103 and 113,” Filius said. “We moved our little guys up and those guys really did a great job. They really wrestled well for us and all of our kids put out great effort.”

After taking on some of the top competition the state of Montana had to offer this past weekend, the Ponies will turn their attention to an even bigger meet as they will take part in the Tri-State Wrestling tournament for the second straight year in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

“We are going to see some of the best kids from Oregon, Washington and Idaho,” Filius said. “So it’s the best possible tournament that we can wrestle at.”

Note: No individual/dual results were made available from the Mining City tournament.