I gotta admit, I haven't seen that before

Lights beat Embry-Riddle on the mat, but the dual featured a bizarre ending

Montana State University-Northern wrestling fans waited a long time to see the Lights wrestle at home again. But, in their first chance to see the Lights since November, they didn't get a full dual.

In one of those, "did that really happen" moments, the head coach of the Embry-Riddle University Eagles pulled his team together and decided to exit the dual with four matches left in the night.

The incident came following Northern freshman Nakoda Siegel's exciting win at 165 pounds. In a dominant third period, Seigel, wrestling in his first home dual for the Lights, beat Taylor Owens 9-6 to give the No. 20 Lights an 13-7 advantage over the No. 14 Eagles in an important Cascade Conference dual.

However, the dual didn't go any further, as coach K.C. Rock, apparently frustrated with the officiating, announced that his team would forfeit the rest of the dual - which gave Northern a commanding 37-7 win.

Now folks, I have been covering sports for a long, long time. And from my very young beginnings in this business, I have been covering wrestling. And having said that, I've seen plenty of mad, upset coaches, and too many instances when coaches think the officiating isn't up to snuff. And yet, I've never, ever seen a coach give up on a match, game, dual or competition of any kind. But especially in wrestling where, these guys literally put their blood, sweat and tears into the mat for months and months, so for a coach to give up on a dual that his team is only down by six, it's just unheard of and I can't believe what I saw Thursday night in the Armory Gymnasium.

Of course, Northern head coach Tyson Thivierge, who would never bail on any of his own wrestlers like that, under any circumstance, was gracious following the dual, choosing to only speak about how well his guys wrestled against the Eagles.

"I'm happy with the way the guys wrestled," Thivierge said. "They're definitely stepping up, they're definitely wrestling at a higher pace right now. I will sit here and say we need to finish matches still. We need to get in there, continue to work on end of period stuff, keep attacking, things like that, but, overall, I was really happy with the guys who wrestled tonight."

The Lights did jump all over the Eagles. At 125 pounds, No. 17 Nick Kunz picked up an 11-1 major decision over 12th-ranked Josh Nira, while Landon Bailey earned a hard-fought 5-3 decision over 19th-ranked Collin Anderson, and just like that, the Lights led 7-0. They weren't done, though, as Clayton Currier beat Jayce Cunha 5-4 at 141, and the Lights led 10-0.

ERAU came back with an overtime win at 149 pounds, where Havre's Lane Paulson put up a great comeback fight but fell with a takedown in sudden victory OT. Caden Hilliard also fell at 157 pounds, but Siegel came right back and scored an impressive win after trailing 5-3 at the end of the first period.

"Nick looked great in his first match back at 125," Thivierge said. Landon and Clayton wrestled really well, too. We had a really exciting match at 165 pounds. All of those matches were contested matches, we knew they would be tough matches, so I'm pleased with those guys and how they wrestled."

Unfortunately, no one got to see the likes of No. 10 Chase Short, Carl Hansen, second-ranked Isaac Bartel or heavyweight Rylan Moldenhauer, since they all received forfeit wins. But those who wrestled were tough, and, Northern fans get one last shot to see the Lights in the Armory when they host Northwest College for senior night, tonight at 7.

And while I'm sure tonight's dual with the talented Trappers will go much differently, Thursday night was one many of us who were there won't soon forget. Anyone ever see the TV show Friday Night Lights? In Season 4, East Dillon coach Eric Taylor doesn't bring his team out from halftime because they're getting crushed. I gotta admit, that's as close to what happened Thursday night as I've seen, and that was a TV show. Watching the Eagles storm out of the gym with four matches left in the dual, that was just surreal.

But at the end of the night, I was impressed and proud of the way Thivierge handled the situation because, just like me, he's never seen that before; either. But he handled it exactly like a veteran coach would do, with dignity, class and sportsmanship.

"We got one more chance to showcase what we can do tomorrow," Thivierge said. "It was unfortunate that the guys lost four matches to forfeits tonight, but overall, I'm proud of the guys. They wrestled hard, and they wrestled well."