State Wrestling: Rebecca Stroh makes history, Beeters advance three to Saturday

BILLINGS -- The Chinook Sugarbeeters have had quite a few history-making days at the All-Class State Wrestling Tournament and Friday in Billings, the Beeters had another, thanks to freshman Rebecca Stroh.

Stroh became the first female wrestler in Chinook history to compete at the state tournament and after winning two of three matches on the first day at the Rimrock Auto Arena at the Metra, her dreams of finding the podium Saturday are still alive and well.

Stroh got a win in her opening match against Tjo Friis of Anaconda, getting the pin at the 5:47 mark. Then, following a loss in the quarterfinals, Stroh bounced back by pinning Kaholo Toves of Wolf Point to earn a spot in the consolation quarterfinals.

"My first match, I had really bad nerves," Stroh said. "But I finally got over it and now I am just trying to settle into it. I wanted to go to the second day and I just had to work through it (the loss). Man, If I could get on the podium, it would be amazing. I just need to stay focused and keep wrestling hard."

While Stroh was the big story on Friday for the Beeters, she isn't the only Chinook wrestler still alive. Reubin Swenson, who won his opening-round match at 205 pounds, before going down in the quarterfinals, won his second-round consolation match over Jadon Lamb of Broadwater to stay alive. He will be joined by teammate Ross Reed, who won two straight matches after losing in the first round, keeping himself in contention.

"We are just going to keep fighting," Chinook head coach Perry Miller said. "That's all we can do right now. We have a lot of young kids and we are just going to keep on battling."

Garrett Pruttis and Favion Couturior both went 0-2 in their first appearances at state. JT Hauer was also eliminated at 152 pounds, but he did win one match, before getting knocked out of the bracket.

The Harlem Wildcats also had four wrestlers in the Class B/C field, but only heavyweight Curtis Humphreys was able to advance to Saturday. He got a pin in the first round and the second-round consolation after losing in the quarterfinals. Zack Jackson, Gavin Horn and Ken Todd were all eliminated from the tournament. Horn and Todd each won one match, while Jackson went 0-2.

The other local team in action Friday at the Metra was Fort Benton/Big Sandy and after a solid day, the Longhorns still have two guys in the fight, as Connor Schnabel (126) and Landon Taylor (152) are still in contention in their respective weight classes. Both wrestlers won their first match, before losing the second and rebounding to win in the consolation bracket. Weston Allderdice also wrestled for Fort Benton/Big Sandy, but he was knocked out of tournament after consecutive losses.

As a team, Chinook, which has 22 points is still in the mix in the Class C race, as the Beeters trail Circle, which has 38 points and Valier, which has 25. Harlem ended up with 12 points and Fort Benton/Big Sandy wound up with 12.

The All-Class State Tournament will resume Saturday morning at 9:30