George Ferguson Column: Last Saturday was a special day for both of Havre's wrestling programs

It’s no secret that the wrestling in Havre is really good right now. It’s no secret that the Havre Blue Ponies and the Montana State University-Northern Lights are two of the best programs in their respective levels of wrestling.

In fact, I hope everybody already knows that and doesn’t need me to tell them so.

But, just because it’s widely known just how good the Blue Ponies and Lights are on the mat, that doesn’t mean that those teams can’t achieve new heights. And they both did that this past weekend, nearly at the same time.

The Lights were in Marshall, Missouri, for what many consider the best NAIA tournament of the regular season. The Missouri Valley Invite featured 25 teams, most of which were NAIA schools, and 17 of the Top 20 teams in the NAIA Coaches Poll. An impressive field to say the least.

And going into the weekend, the on top of the list of teams in the field was four-time defending NAIA national champion Grand View — the premier power in NAIA wrestling no doubt.

But, even with Grand View in the field, that didn’t stop the Lights from performing to an extremely high level, and at the end of the meet, it was Northern, not Grand View which was on top of the team standings.

Now, I know full well that the Missouri Valley Invite is not the NAIA national tournament, and Grand View is no doubt, still the team to beat in March in Topeka, Kansas. But, make no mistake, Northern head coach Tyson Thivierge and his troops aren’t going to rest on the team title last week in Missouri.

Instead, the Lights will use it as fuel, fuel to get better and fuel to go after the grand prize come early spring.

And while it was a regular season tournament, the team title in Missouri was also a benchmark for Northern, or rather, an announcement that these Lights are for real, and they plan on contending for a national championship in less than two months. And it was also an impressive statement considering the Lights are a very young team, with a plethora of outstanding true and red-shirt freshman flanking the upper-weight seniors like Toby Cheff and Willie Miller and juniors Garrett DeMers and Taylor Kornoely.

Yes, age and experience really isn’t seeming to be a factor with the Lights right now, and the scary thought is, as well as Northern wrestled last weekend in Missouri, there’s still time for the Lights to get even better.

Getting better is also something the Blue Ponies of head coach Scott Filius are trying to do. But, it’s hard to imagine Havre even needing it given what it’s done this season, and especially last weekend in Missoula.

The Ponies won the Jug Beck Rocky Mountain Classic team title for the second straight year, on the strength of three individual champions. And, like Northern’s triumph in Missouri, the Ponies’ win in Missoula is special because there is no better tournament in Montana each year than the Jug Beck.

And for Havre, a team that is open at two weight classes, to beat the likes of Missoula Sentinel, Great Falls High, teams like University High in Spokane, Washington, and Powell, Wyoming, well, it just doesn’t get much better than that.

But just wait, because the Blue Ponies are planning on being even better. Their plan is go to Billings in just three weeks and win their fourth straight Class A state team title. Of course, that’s always the goal in the Havre High wrestling program, but what makes Havre so special is, no matter how much it dominates, and no matter how much of a foregone conclusion a state title might be, the Ponies don’t look at it like that.

Instead, Havre is also striving to get better, to dominate more, and while winning the Jug Beck might be the pinnacle for the regular season, trust and believe that the Blue Ponies are nowhere near done getting better.

And even though both the Ponies and Lights have loftier goals than regular season team titles, last Saturday was pretty cool for Havre wrestling in general. In fact, it’s awfully cool to see both of Havre’s wrestling programs win extremely prestigious team titles on the same day.

But then again, as good as the Ponies and Lights are, maybe it’s also becoming par for the course. Nevertheless, if you’re a wrestling fan around here, you’ve got it pretty darn good, and like I said before, the fun is just beginning.