Mustangs win Division

It’s no secret that the Malta-Whitewater Mustangs wrestling team has won their last two regular season meets, but it almost stayed a secret that they won the Northern B Title.

A scoring error awarded Malta the second place trophy, but after the Northern B Divisional Tournament was rescored, the MHSA ruled that Malta had indeed won the tournament late last Monday evening.

“It’s the real deal,” Coach Ryan LaBrie told the PCN upon finding out the news. “They did the hard work and got the hardware for it.”

Malta won the event with 162 points, while four wrestlers won their weight class, nine qualified for State by placing in the top four and eleven of twelve wrestlers placed in the top six.

“Team wise head to head, we knew it was going to come down to us and Fairfield-Simms,” Coach LaBrie said. “Pushing six into the finals was huge.”

Fairfield-Simms took second with 161, Choteau placed third with 83 points. Valier took fourth with 82 points and Shelby took fifth with 80.

Two time State placer, Trey Simanton earned his third trip to State, while taking first place in the 138 class by pinning Fairfield/ Simms’ Cole Giles in 1:46.

Kaden Moore took third last season with Malta, and he will have another chance to place in the 132 class after he took first place by pinning Wyatt Brusven of Shelby in 5:07.

Kolter Schipman took first in the 120 class by winning his championship round match against Choteau’s Pete Henderson by 5-3 decision.

Travis Epperson took first in the 182 class by defeating Fairfield/ Simms’ Colton Like by pin fall at 1:16.

Ceaton Mears took second in the 145 class after losing the championship round to defending champion Tate Niederegger of Chinook by pin fall at 5:15.

Callan Mears took second in the 126 class after losing the championship round to Valier’s Isaac Ramos by pin fall at 5:20.

Keenan Schipman placed third in the 170 class by pinning teammate Andres Lopez at 3:37. Lopez took fourth in the class, also qualifying him for State.

Luke Lawless took fourth place in the heavyweight class after losing the third place match to Harlem’s Curtis Humphreys by pin fall.

Frankie Werk took fifth place in the heavyweight class and Miles Bunk took sixth in the 205 class.

Marcus Woods also participated but was eliminated in the consolation round.

“As far as wrestling goes, they wrestled a near flawless tournament,” Coach LaBrie said. “They went out there and got the job done. We did fall three guys short of taking them all to State but even with those three, we were scoring points with guys that we knew could score points.”

The 2017 All-Class Wrestling Tournament will be held at the Rimrock Auto Arena in Billings on Friday, February 10 and Saturday, February 11. The ticket gates open at 8 a.m. Friday, with the parade of athletes starting at 10 a.m. and the first round starting at 10:20 a.m.