Alumni Dual will feature many Northern greats

The Montana State University-Northern wrestling team is hard at work preparing for the upcoming season. And the Lights will take another step towards doing just that on Saturday.

Northern wrestling fans will also get to see plenty of history when they watch the Lights take to the mat in the annual Alumni Dual Saturday at 12 p.m. in the MSU-Northern Fieldhouse.

The Northern Alumni Dual always attracts plenty of past Northern greats and Saturday's event is no different. The list of returning Northern stars includes four-time NAIA national champion Turk Lords and three-time champion Emmett Willson. Three-time NAIA All-American Mitch Overlie, a Chester product is also scheduled to wrestle Saturday as is two-time NAIA All-American Rudy James.

The Alumni Dual will feature 13 total matches between current Lights and former Northern greats. The matchups start with 2003 NAIA All-American Bobby Mantle, now a long-time Havre resident taking on Northern freshman Cole Gorder of Poplar. Austin Ouelette, a 2009 NAIA All-American and a first-year assistant coach under Tyson Thivierge will battle Northern redshirt and former Chinook state champion Willie Miller, while 2006 NAIA All-American, former Havre Blue Pony standout and current CMR head wrestling coach Aaron Jensen will square off against Lights' redshirt Trent Jones. Jones is a two-time Class B-C state champion from Harlem.

The action continues with 2010 Northern graduate Tay Todd facing freshman Mickey Cheff, 2007 graduate and former Lights' assistant Mike McPeak will take on Northern senior Anthony Weerheim and 2000 NAIA All-American Lyle Cronk will battle redshirt Johnny Schlosser of Conrad. James, who was an all-american in 1997 and 1999 will face sophomore Jared Miller, 2009 graduate Colt Heger will wrestle senior and former Blue Pony state champion Beau LaSalle, 2004 and 2007 all-american Chris Smith will wrestle freshman and four-time Poplar state champion Hunter Azure and 2010 all-american Evan Mattingly will face junior Cody Reed.

The highlight matches also include some great ones at the end of the dual. Overlie will face off against sophomore and 2010 all-american Cameron Neiss, while Willson will battle 2011 national champion Evan Hinebauch. Lords, who won national titles in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 will face freshman heavyweight Nikc King to round out the dual.

The Lights wrestling team competed in Ronan on Thursday as they held their first Maroon/Gold Dual of the season. See Monday's Havre Daily News for results.

Saturday's Alumni Dual is set to start at 12 p.m. at the MSU-Northern Fieldhouse.