Greenchain wrestling looking strong as season winds down
The Libby Greenchain rolled into Missoula over the weekend for the Rocky Mountain Tourney with two wrestlers placing third in a strong field and then returned home on Tuesday to destroy Polson in a dual meet.
Garret Chapel and Zach Crace wrestled their way to the second day of competition and each placed third in their respective weight classes.
Crace, at 152 pounds, won his first match over Big Sky’s Andres in a 6-0 decision. He followed that up with a pin on Max Sechena from Charles M. Russell, just 1:01 into the match. He then pinned Frenchtown’s Preston Downard at 2:15.
Lewiston’s Ryan Klemp pinned Crace 48 seconds into their match, but Crace fought his way back with victories over Lake City’s Killian Konda (9-0 decision) and Havre’s Kody Pribyl (pin at 3:55) to secure third place.
“Zach has been wrestling really tough all season, and that continued at the Rocky,” Libby coach Kelly Morford said. “He lost to a Lewiston kid that is just a stud, but he completely dominated the rest of his matches. He pinned the Havre kid for third, and he will be one of Zach’s toughest opponents at State, so that was encouraging. He had a disappointing showing at this tournament last year so he was determined to come back his senior year and place high.”
Chapel also looked tough at the Rocky, but took a different path to his third place. He was beaten 14-0 by University High’s Levi Meinzinger in his first round and then beat wrestlers from Florence (pin at 1:33), Hamilton (technical fall, 17-2 at 4:00), Lake City (11-9 decision), Powell (pin at 2:10), Bonner’s Ferry (pin at 3:11) and Columbia Falls (pin at 1:20). He also then beat Meinzinger, who beat him earlier in the tournament, by a 9-3 decision to place third.
“Garret took the long way to third,” Morford said. “He had a tough draw in the first round again with the University High kid and had to wrestle back all the way through the consolation bracket to get third. He won seven matches in a row and the best part is that he was able to beat the University High kid that beat him in the first round of both the Rocky and Tri-State tournaments. Beating that kid was a giant monkey off Garret’s back and I was proud of the grit that he showed all weekend. Garret really turned a corner this weekend and got back to wrestling the way he was at the end of last year. He is right where he needs to be to finish the season strong and head into state in a good position.”
Morford also praised the efforts of Laine Young and Dylan Roby. “Laine and Dylan are a couple of other guys who had good showings. Dylan was one match away from making the second day and Laine beat a tough Polson kid in overtime. Those are the types of wins we are really excited to see in a young wrestler like Laine.”
Big Sky hosted a consolation tournament on Saturday for the wrestlers that didn’t make the cut for the second day of competition at the Rocky Mountain Tournament. “Coach Love said we competed well over there as a team and he was excited about the progress of some of our younger wrestlers. Michael Miller was really explosive and ended up 3-1 on the day,” Morford said.
At home in the Ralph Tate Memorial Gym on Tuesday, it was all Libby.
The overall score was 43-30, but 18 of Polson’s team points came from forfeited matches at 113, 205 and 285 pounds where Libby has holes in the roster. Libby’s Mason Sams and Reed Christensen were pinned by their Polson opponents at the 1:01 and 2:59 marks, respectively. At 120 pounds, Tim Brivka won by forfeit, as did Michael Miller at 170 pounds, but the other six Greenchain wrestlers defeated their opponents.
Laine Young won a 3-2 decision over Polson’s Thunder Morales in the 126 pound class. Garret Chapel scored an 11-1 decision over Tele Seemann. A decision is a win of less than eight points, which results in three points for a team in dual meets.
Dylan Roby, Dylan Parrish, Zach Crace and Alex Yeadon all managed to pin their Polson opponents, each earning six points in the dual competition.
The Greenchain is on the road tonight at Columbia Falls and then returns home for their final dual meet before divisionals against Whitefish on Jan. 29, which is also Senior Night. Morford said his team is in good shape heading into the divisional and state tournaments. “I feel like we are peaking at the right time in the season as a team and we only have two matches before divisionals to keep that momentum going. A lot of our guys will have their work cut out for them to be in the top four and qualify for state, so we need to be wrestling our best going into that tournament.”