Chris Peterson Havre Daily News cpeterson@havredailynews.com
It was business as usual this weekend for the Havre High wrestling team, as the Ponies won another dual tournament by capturing the title at the Class A Duals in Belgrade. After going unchallenged on their way to the tournament championship bout, the Ponies squared off against No. 2-ranked Libby on Saturday afternoon. Libby beat the Ponies in the title match last season. The Loggers offered some stiff competition for the Ponies, but in the end, Havre had just a little too much depth for Libby to overcome, and the Ponies came away with the team title after its 48-42 victory over the Loggers. Havre got victories in the final match from Chris Recio at 98 pounds, Ryan Shelstad at 105 pounds, Myles Mazurkiewicz at 125 pounds, Beau LaSalle at 130 pounds, Ethan Hinebauch at 145 pounds and Mitch Schnittgen at 275 pounds. All of Havre’s victories came by pin. Evan Hinebauch also won at 189 pounds by forfeit. Logan Reichelt, Phillip Sutherland, Curtis Shandorf and Chris Buskirk were all pinned in their matches with Libby making things very close. “I thought that the kids wrestled really well this weekend,” HHS head coach Scott Filius. “It was competitive in the last dual, in part because we were open in three weights, but I was pretty pleased with how we wrestled.” Havre absolutely dominated the competition on the opening day of the tournament, defeating Butte Central 60-0 in large part because the Maroons were forced to forfeit matches at a number of weights. The Ponies also knocked off Laurel 57-18 and Dillon 69-12 on Friday to notch an unbeaten record in pool competition. With an unbeaten record, Havre received one of the top seeds for the tournament on Saturday. The Ponies opened up Saturday with a 62-21 victory over No. 10 Anaconda, followed by another impressive 61-21 victory over the host team and Central A foe Belgrade. The win put Havre into the semifinals against Hardin. Hardin showed little resistance against Havre in the semi-finals as the Ponies crushed the opposition once again, defeating Hardin 65-18 to advance to the championship round against Libby. “I am really pleased with the way that some of our young kids wrestled,” Filius said. “I think that our kids in the light weights wrestled really well and most of them ended up going unbeaten.” The Ponies had a number of wrestlers that went undefeated in the dual tournament, including Evan and Ethan Hinebauch, Recio, Shelstad, Mazurkiewicz, LaSalle and Wagner. Schnittgen, a freshman also had a solid weekend, losing just once in place of his brother Matt Schnittgen. “We had a lot of kids that really wrestled well,” Filius said. “Billy Wagner had a pretty good weekend. Mitch did a pretty good job.”
The Ponies will be back in action on Thursday night when they host the Great Falls High Bison and CMR Rustlers for a dual meet at the HHS gymnasium. Havre also will wrestle in a dual on Saturday in Conrad against one of the top teams in all of class B wrestling.
