Libby Little Guys win tourney
Outgoing president of the Libby chapter of Little Guy Wrestling Vic Crace is leaving his position with the team on top. In Hamilton on March 27 and 28 Libby won the middle group Western Montana Little Guy Wrestling Tournament for the first time in about 16 years.
“In my 14 years as president this is the first time we’ve ever won the state,” Crace said. “It’s pretty exciting what’s coming up for the high school, especially as we move into the B-C class.”
Crace said with coaches Bill Moe and Kelly Morford now about five years into their positions with the club, they’re setting a winning tone for the program.
“Some stuff Bill and Kelly are doing is starting to take hold and things are really starting to click,” Crace said. “Hopefully these guys will be around for a long time.”
The Libby club took roughly 35 wrestlers to the two-day tournament that was set up for the juniors to wrestle on Friday night and then the younger wrestlers on Saturday.
“I had no thoughts of us winning the team championship award before the tournament,” said head coach Bill Moe. “However, the juniors set the stage for us.”
Moe said Buddy Doolin was rock solid in his finals match, pinning his opponent to earn the first state championship of the weekend for the team.
Then Jeff Offenbecher and Trey Thompson fought their way to the finals and earned second-place finishes.
Ranked ninth coming into the tournament, Jonathan Tinnel scrapped his way to a third place finish.
“He came a long way from his matches that resembled Bill Goldberg “the Spear” in the old days of World Wrestling Federation,” Moe said.
Tanner Marshal and Tytus Meister also cracked the top four spots to score points for the team.
On Saturday the stage was set for beginners, middles, and novices.
After the fiery display of Friday, Crace said to Moe, “Hey we could win this,” but Moe still wasn’t so sure.
“I didn’t want to put that pressure on the kids. So I gave them a talk about stepping up to the Friday night junior’s performance.”
“The wrestlers really turned it on,” Moe said. A couple wrestlers whose determination led to state championships on Saturday were Carson Kately and Dillon Yeadon. In an outstanding finals match Dawson Young placed second. From third place, Cody Crace worked hard and challenged for a true second-place and won it. Xavier Reatz and Zach Morrison wrestled really tough and earned third place. Moe said most of the other wrestlers also gave their best.
“Coach Morford and I mostly work with juniors, middles, and some novice but I did hear the Beginner coaches say that those kids wrestled very well,” Moe said. “I give a lot of credit to coach Morford and the other coaches, the work ethic of our wrestlers, a change of attitude, support of our parents and to the support of from our community,” he added.
Morford was unable to make it to the tournament, but was instrumental in getting the wrestlers in a position to be so successful.
“I am extremely proud of this group of young men. They really improved throughout the year and were a really coachable group,” Morford said.
In several of the state tournament matches, Libby’s wrestlers earned victories over kids who had beaten them earlier in the year.
Morfod said, “Those types of matches put us over the top as far as the team race. This is a great group of young wrestlers and if they stick together and keep up the hard work, they will have a lot more success in the future. As the high school coach, I am really excited about the future of our program with these kids.”
To celebrate the championship, Libby Little Guy wrestlers were treated to a fire truck ride to Burger Express for ice cream yesterday.
Beginners
Teague Thompson, 2nd; Conner Abey, 2nd: Logan Loaiza, 2nd; Brook Yeadon 3rd; Brenda Fiscus, 4th
Novice
60- 3rd place- Xavier Retz, Libby
140- 2nd place- Bradley McCann, Troy
Middle
70- 1st place- Carson Kately, Libby
80- 1st place- Dillon Yeado, Libby
90- 4th place- Ben McCann, Troy
95- 3rd place- Zack Morrison, Libby
110- 2nd place- Dawson Young, Libby
187- 4th place- Tytus Meister, Libby
Junior
90- 1st place- Buddy Doolin, Libby
95- 2nd place- Trey Thompson, Libby
119- 2nd place- Jeff Offenbecher, Libby
160- 3rd place- John Tinnell, Libby
189- 4th place- Tanner Marshall, Libby