Ponies look to summit the Rockies

The Havre High wrestling team is used to winning big tournaments. In fact, the Blue Ponies are used to winning just about every tournament they enter, but this weekend, at the Jug Beck Rocky Mountain Classic, Havre will face as big a challenge as it’s faced all season.

The meet, which is without a doubt the most prestigious high school meet in the state of Montana, outside the All-Class State wrestling tournament, starts Friday and will conclude Saturday with Missoula Sentinel High School serving as the host.

While the Ponies will be in Missoula Friday and Saturday competing against some of the best competition from Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington, they have a date with CMR for a dual today in Great Falls.

Havre is certainly familiar with CMR, just as the Rustlers are no stranger to the Ponies. The two teams have competed in a number of tournaments and even though they haven’t gone head-to-head in a dual, they are quite familiar with each other.

“We have seen them quite a bit,” HHS head coach Scott Filius said of CMR. “They have a few good kids, but their good kids are at the same weights as some of our better kids. In the past we have been able to win some of those. So I would think we would do pretty well against them, but they have gotten us a couple times down there in the past.”

There are no Class A rankings, but there are Class AA rankings and even though the Rustlers aren’t currently ranked as a team, they do have some high-ranking individuals.

No one on the Rustler team ranks higher than Nick Nordell, who is the top-ranked wrestler in the AA ranks in the 205-pound weight class. He will face Tyler Schaub from Havre, which should be a compelling match.

The match between heavyweights should also be intriguing as Havre’s Travis Adams, who won an individual state title a year ago faces Noah Danielson, who ranks second in Class A in the heavyweight division.

The one advantage CMR has in the dual with Havre will be depth. The Ponies will still have just 11 weight classes filled up and will have two open spots in the lineup. Yet, Havre makes up for a lack of depth with an incredible amount of talent and it starts at the top of the lineup and goes all the way down to Adams at the bottom.

Starting things off for Havre is Ryan Stewart at 113 pounds and Martin Wilkie at 120 pounds. Then, there is Logan Pleninger at 132 pounds, Kody Pribyl at 138 and Jazz Schroeder at 145 pounds. At 152 pounds, the Ponies have Parker Filius, one of the top individuals in the state, followed by Dane Flammond at 160, Walter White at 170, Jase Stokes at 182, Schaub at 205 and Adams at heavyweight.

After taking on the Rustlers tonight, the Ponies will turn their attention toward defending their crown the Rocky Mountain Classic, which starts Friday in Missoula. In all, there will be 38 teams present from Montana, Idaho, Washington and Wyoming.

“This is the best meet in the state of Montana,” coach Filius said. “I think it’s the second best one we go to, the Tri-State is the best, but this one has some great competition. You have the best teams from Montana and then a team like Powell, Wyoming, which has won some state championships and also teams from Spokane, which are usually very tough.”

Last year, the Ponies won the meet thanks to five finalists and eight wrestlers who placed. While Havre’s only individual champion at the meet a year ago moved on, both Filius and Stokes are back after losing in the finals. And on top of that, both Pleninger and Adams return to the tournament after third-place finishes a season ago, while Pribyl is back after finishing fourth.

“We try to build to this meet,” Filius said. “We have had a number of teams that have come in and for a number of reasons finished second. We only have guys in 11 of 13 weights, so that can be a factor. But, it would be a great achievement for the kids if we could do what we set out to do and win the tournament.

Havre will take on CMR today in Great Falls at 5, before heading to Missoula for the Rocky Mountain Classic, which begins Friday morning and concludes Saturday.