By Ryan Divish/Havre Daily News Sports Editor/rdivish@havredailynews.com
It wasn't quite a tune-up, but it was far from a test. Call it what you want, for the Havre High wrestling team, it simply goes down as yet another dual win.
The Ponies spurred on by three pins, two wins by forfeit and a major victory defeated CMR 44-21 at the MSU-Northern gymnasium.
"Overall, I was pretty pleased," said Havre High head coach Scott Filius. "We had a little different lineup, but the kids went out and wrestled hard."
With the Central A Divisional tournament looming a week away, Filius was looking for some solid matches against competition other than Class A opponents.
And he got that from the Rustlers, who may have made things a little more interesting if they didn't forfeit matches at 189 and 215.
"Our kids battled Havre hard and put themselves in a position to win the match," said CMR head coach Joel Auers. "Going into the match at 98 pounds, we were in position to win the dual, but the forfeits really did hurt."
Havre opened the dual in solid fashion at 119 pounds as Clint Bradbury picked up a hard-fought 4-2 win over Kyle McCracken. Sophomore Beau LaSalle gave Havre a 7-0 lead with an 8-0 major decision over Jeff Yoder.
CMR finally got on the board at 130 pounds as Spencer Bailey defeated Gray Chagnon 6-4 in overtime. Chagnon tied the match late in the third period at 4-4 with a takedown. However, Bailey got the decisive points as he scored a reversal on Chagnon.
Havre jumped out to a 13-3 lead as Mike Hipple pinned Jesse Kruse with 9.8 seconds left in the second period at 135.
CMR then went on a three-match run as Jace Oeleas scored a 17-8 major decision over Mike Sutherland at 140. At 145, Michael Graham decisioned Logan Reichelt, 9-3 to cut the lead to 13-10.
"I think the move up a weight bothered Mike a little," Filius said. "I'm sure it bothered him that he wasn't able to push guys around as much as he usually does. But he has to make the adjustment."
The Rustlers took their first lead of the dual a match later as defending state champ Tom Daniels pinned Dallas Thompson with 49.3 seconds remaining in the first period.
The lead was short-lived though. Top-ranked Evan Hinebauch scored a 12-3 major decision over Ryan McCracken at 160 pounds. Hinebauch looked to have pins twice in the match, but McCracken was able to escape.
"The guy Hinebauch wrestled was wrestling to get pinned," Filius said. "It's hard to do much against someone like that, you just have to take the win."
Up 17-16, it would be Havre's turn to relinquish the lead quickly as Andy Fogerty picked up a tough 8-6 win over Cody Seely at 171 pounds.
Seely battled back from a 6-2 second period deficit, but simply ran out of time.
"I thought Cody Seely wrestled extremely hard and did a nice job of coming back," Filius said.
Fogerty's win gave CMR a 19-17 lead. However, forfeits to Chad Seely at 189 and Tyler Wheeler at 215, gave the lead back to Havre at 27-19.
Top-ranked heavyweight Matt Schnittgen pushed the lead to 35-19 with a second-period pin of Andrew Voorhees. Schnittgen dominated early on and was very active using a variety of attacks before sticking Voorhees.
"Matt showed a lot of offense tonight," Filius said. "He was very aggressive and that's something you like to see."
Havre got another pin at 98 pounds as freshman Ryan Shelstad made quick work of Nick Segners, pinning him in less than a minute into the first period.
"Shelstad got a nice win," Filius said.
The match of the night came at 105 pounds as sophomore Billy Wagner rallied from deficits of 5-0 and 8-5 to score an 11-10 decision over Jake Jaraczeski. Wagner trailed 10-8 late in the third period, but scored a three-point near fall with 30 seconds left to secure the win.
"Billy had a good night," Filius said. "He did a nice job of fighting back in his match and getting a win."
In the final match of the evening, Josh Vazquez pinned Shane Boucher at 112 pounds.
"We got what we wanted which is some hard matches against competition other than what we'll see at state," Filius said. "You want to have these close matches this time of year."
Auers was also happy with his team's showing, despite the loss.
"This is one of our best showings of the year," he said. "Havre has a great team this year and wrestling them only helps us. We get to see state level competition and see how we compare competitively and conditioning-wise."
The night was pretty successful for Havre High as a whole, according to Filius.
"Our JV wrestlers also looked really good tonight," he said. "We're going to have four of those wrestlers competing for us in the postseason. I was really pleased with how they looked."
Havre 44, CMR 21
98 - Ryan Shelstad, HAV pinned Nick Segners, CMR :55
105 - Billy Wagner, HAV dec. Jake Jaraczeski, CMR 11-10
112 - Josh Vazquez, CMR pinned Shane Boucher, HAV 3:41
119 - Clint Bradbury, HAV dec. Kyle McCracken, CMR 4-2
125 - Beau LaSalle, HAV major dec. Jeff Yoder, CMR 10-0
130 - Spencer Bailey, CMR dec. Gray Chagnon, HAV 6-4
135 - Mike Hipple, HAV pinned Jesse Kruse, CMR 5:51
140 - Jace Oeleas, CMR dec. Mike Sutherland, HAV 15-8
145 - Mike Graham, CMR dec. Logan Reichelt, HAV 9-3
152 - Tom Daniels, CMR pinned Dallas Thompson, HAV 1:11
160 - Evan Hinebauch, HAV major dec. Ryan McCracken, CMR 12-3
171 - Andy Fogerty, CMR dec. Cody Seely, HAV 8-6
189 - Chad Seely, HAV won by forfeit
215 - Tyler Wheeler, HAV won by forfeit
HWT - Matt Schnittgen, HAV pinned Andrew Voorhees, CMR 3:54
