Yet another exciting Northern Alumni Dual

The Montana State University-Northern Lights wrestling team hosted their annual Alumni Dual Saturday afternoon in front of an energetic crowd in the Armory Gymnasium. A total of 18 matches took place, with the Alumni taking 13 to push to a 49-19 final score.

Former Light’s All-American Chris Nile officiated and also wrestled a match in the event.

The alumni roster featured 11 former NAIA All-Americans including three NAIA National Champions (Ben Stroh, Brandon Weber and Issac Bartel).

The matches were abbreviated to three, one-minute periods and overtime was sudden death.

In the dual Mike Hipple (2007) won by fall in the first period over Leo Anderson (Helena).

Brennan Veis (2020) defeated Noah McDermott (Spokane, Wash.) 3-0. Steeler French (2021) defeated Reece White (Madras, Ore.) 4-3 in a highly competitive match. Cade Gubler (Livingston) defeated the alumni’s Todd Eldridge (1997) 6-3 in a match that came down to the final seconds. Landon Bailey (2020) downed Cooper Cook (Columbus) by fall in the third period. Dylan Veis (2021) won in the final seconds on a takedown in his match against Gavin McLean (Frenchtown).

For the Lights, Tanner Cook (Columbus) defeated Rob Pair (2020) in overtime 3-1. Light Rylin Burns (Colstrip) defeated Ethan Roetman (2022) 5-2. NaKoda Siegel (Colstrip) defeated Chris Nile (2018) 4-3. Light Austin Vanek (Cut Bank) downed Max Payne 12-3.

Former great Matt Weber defeated Colin Silverthorn (Tomasket, Wash.) 13-3.

And in one of the most exciting matches of the day, Light Martin Wilkie (Havre) defeated Cameron Neiss (2014) 7-3. Former Havre and Northern star Ethan Hinebauch (2014) won by fall over Zach Valdez (Colstrip) 13-0. Garrett DeMers (2016) defeated Carl Hanson (Elko, Nev.) 8-3.

Andrew Bartel (2019) downed Devin Crawford (Helena) by a score of 3-1 in overtime.

Then, the final three matches highlighted former National Champions, as Ben Stroh (2017) defeated Josh Walker (Spanaway, Wash.) by fall in the first period. MSU-N 2017 National Champion Brandon Weber defeated Connor Harris (Havre) by a score of 8-3, and 2021 National Champion Issac Bartel downed Rylan Moldenhauer (Great Falls) 6-1.

Lights head coach Tyson Thivierge said, “I thought we wrestled well. One-minute periods are short time situations and we need to learn to score in those short periods. This was the most matches we have ever had in my 15 years. It was hard not coaching the Alumni because 16 of the 18 guys wrestled for me. They taught our guys valuable lessons.”

The Lights are back in action Thursday night for the annual Maroon and Gold dual.