Lights crown Knights in home debut

On the scoreboard, the Montana State University-Northern Lights dominated Warner-Pacific in their home debut. That doesn't mean the Lights wrestled perfectly, though. In fact, veteran head coach Tyson Thivierge thought it was far from perfection.

The No. 12 Lights beat the visiting Knights in a Cascade Conference dual, 34-12, Thursday night in the Armory Gymnasium, in the only dual the Lights will wrestle at home before the new year. And while Northern did score three pins and a major decision, the Lights also lost some matches that Thivierge thought his team could have wrestled much better in.

"We scored a lot of points off of forfeits, too," Thivierge said. "Think about it, we lost four out of the eight matches we wrestled. I wanted to win every one of those. So I'm not happy about that.

"We're young, we made some young errors, and I made some coaching errors, I can swallow some of that," he continued. "But this is a team (Warner Pacific) who spent 21 hours on a train and didn't even get here until 1 (p.m.) today. We've got to wrestle these guys better than this. We've just got to find more consistency. That's my take on this."

As expected, though, the Lights' big guns were consistent.

Northern got forfeits at 125 pounds and at 157, but the Lights' Landon Bailey suffered a tough loss at 133 pounds, when he was way ahead on points, but gave up six points in the final 10 seconds to wind up in overtime with WP's Lucas Higginbotham. Bailey then gave up a takedown early in sudden victory overtime, and the Knights were quickly on the board.

Fortunately though, it didn't take MSU-N long to reverse the trend. At 141 pounds, Matt Weber pinned Zach Silas, and Northern added bonus points in back-to-back matches, as Andrew Bartel pinned Timmy Riviera and Chris Nile shut out Jonathan Moskowitz with a 10-0 major decision.

Then came the capper. The Knights were open at 197 pounds, so MSU-N' freshman Isaac Bartel moved up to heavyweight to face Alvaro Venegas. And it didn't take long for Bartel show what he's capable of as he relentlessly attacked Venegas until he got him on his back and got six more points for the Lights, with a fall in just 1:30.

Bartel, who jumped from un-ranked to sixth in the new NAIA Coaches Poll this week, gave the Lights their fourth win, and all came on bonus points.

"We had some guys who came out and were very aggressive," Thivierge said. "We want that. We want those guys to go out and score more points, and not sit on leads. We want to be aggressive and offensive, and some of those guys were tonight."

And while Thivierge wasn't completely happy with the entire dual, the Lights still came away with their first conference win of the season, and they did it without 184-pound starter Steeler French, who's out with an injury.

"We always want to win, but we also want to get better," Thivierge said. "We're a young team, and it's a process. But the big thing is, we still need to find out who we are, and be that way consistently. Be that way in every dual, every match and every period. Not just some of the time, but all of the time. That's what I want to see from these guys moving forward."

The Lights, who won't wrestle at home again until Jan. 4, will get a chance to progress Sunday when they compete in the Spokane Open.

Note: Before Thursday night's dual, Brandon Weber and Ben Stroh were presented with their 2017 national championship rings, which they won last March at the NAIA national tournament.

Lights 34, Warner-Pacific 12

125 - Nick Kunz, MSU-N won by fft; 133 - Lucas Higginbotham, WP dec. Landon Bailey, MSU-N, 12-10 in OT; 141 - Matt Weber, MSU-N pinned Zach Sias, WP, 2:48; 149 - Baylen Cooper, WP maj. dec. Dylan Veis, MSU-N, 12-4; 157 - Brandon Weber, MSU-N won by fft; 165 - Andrew Bartel, MSU-N pinned Timmy Riviera, WP, 4:29; 174 - Chris Nile, MSU-N maj. dec. Jonothan Moskowitz, WP, 10-0; 184 - Joe Dickinson, WP tech fall Rylan Moldenhauer, MSU-N, 16-0; 197 - Open; HWT - Isaac Bartel, MSU-N pinned Alvaro Venegas, WP, 1:31.