Ponies aim to keep their Mining City title

Over the years, the Havre High wrestling team has won a lot of tournaments and at many of them, they have won multiple times in succession.

One of those tournaments is the annual Mining City Duals and starting this Friday, the Blue Ponies will look to win a sixth straight championship.

The Mining City Duals will be the culmination of three days of wrestling in Butte for Havre, as the Ponies will take part in the Butte Central Mixer tonight at 6, before sticking around for the dual tournament, which begins Friday and runs through Saturday.

While the Ponies have won multiple titles at other tournaments like the Havre Invitational or the Cut Bank Invitational, their dominance at the Mining City Duals has added significance because of the competition. There are plenty of Class A teams in attendance, however, in order to win the team championship, the Ponies generally have to go through at least a few Class AA teams such as Kalispell, the team HHS beat in the finals last season. In the opening round of the competition Friday, Havre will take on Billings Senior, Helena High and Polson.

"I think the kids kind of feed off each other," HHS head coach Beau LaSalle said when asked of the team's previous success at the tournament. "With the team format and having the whole team right there, when one guy does well it just kind of has a domino effect. The thing with us for the last five or six years is the kids have just gotten better with each dual."

After teams take part in the pool stage of the tournament, they will be seeded Saturday based off their record and put into brackets for a single-elimination tournament.

Last year, Havre lost a dual on the first day but rebounded to win the championship anyway.

Of course, the Ponies won the previous six championships with Scott Filius at the helm, however, LaSalle, who was an assistant for all five titles, has a number of experienced wrestlers back on his squad, including quite a few who have experience in this format.

One of those individuals is Martin Wilkie, the three-time state champion who will wrestle at 145 pounds and headlines the lineup for the Ponies. Joining him are Lane Paulson (138 pounds) Connor Harris, Mick Chagnon, Cameron Pleninger (120 pounds) and Austin Ratliff (205 pounds) who are all coming off individual titles last week at the Havre Invite and also have plenty of experience in the Mining City format.

The Ponies finished second at the Havre Invitational last weekend, but they didn't have a full lineup and this week, they will be one step closer to having just that. Marc Ramirez will make his season debut at 132 pounds, while Taylor Gopher will do the same at 170. Chagnon will wrestle most of his matches at 113 pounds for the Ponies. Filling in for him at 103 pounds will be Riley Pleninger.

At 120 pounds will be Cameron Pleninger followed by Dominic Perkins at 126. Havre has two wrestlers at 152 right now in Connor Harris and Orion Thivierge and according to LaSalle, both will see action and will alternate between 152 and 160 pounds. Brayden Stadell will be the guy at 182 pounds, Ratliff will wrestle at 205 and either Josh Johnson or Derek Olson will be the heavyweight.

"We got the lineup from Polson and we match up pretty well with them," LaSalle said. "I don't know much about Billings Senior or Helena High. We just need to go out and wrestle."

Before the Ponies take part in the Mining City Duals, they will compete in the Butte Central Mixer Thursday night, which is basically a tournament without any team scores kept. Teams get lots of matches in and Havre also gets to see some of the Western A teams that aren't always part of the schedule.

"We get to see a few teams we don't normally see," LaSalle said. "Corvallis, Hamilton and Stevensville, those guys. I am just looking for our younger guys to take a step forward and for our older guys that are going to wrestle, I want to see them put a stamp on where they are at."

Havre will wrestle at the Butte Central Mixer tonight at 6, followed by the Mining City Duals Friday and Saturday at Butte High School.