Warriors place 5th at Mission Mountain Classic
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ST. IGNATIUS — The Warriors worked out the kinks from a long Christmas break at the Mission Mountain Classic in St. Ignatius Saturday.
Warrior freshman Austin Rubel was the highest finisher for Arlee, finishing in second place in the 105-pound class, after being pinned by Frenchtown’s Glenn Hensley in the first period in the championship match.
“Austin has come a long way since the beginning of the season with conditioning and knowing the moves needed to be a great wrestler. He still needs to work on remembering where his center of gravity is at all times. Wrestling is a sport of angles, pressure and ounces, you wrestle by feel more than by sight, and he is figuring these things out,” Arlee coach Ken Hill said.
Rubel was the only Arlee wrestler to make it to the championship round, but the Warriors had four wrestlers in the consolation matches.
Cody North, Arlee’s 215-pound wrestler, had the best finish of his career after pinning Noxon’s Jacob Dean in 34 seconds. North, known as “Code Red” by his teammates, best finish prior to Saturday was a fourth-place at Superior earlier in the season.
The consolation round wasn’t so kind to Logan Lefler, Al Plant and Curt Seidel. Lefler, the Warriors’ 125-pound sophomore, was pinned by Darby’s Caleb Caicedo in the first-period. The loss came on the heels of a tough 8-7 loss to Superior’s Mason Chatterley in the semifinals
Lefler was leading Chatterley, who went on to win the 125-pound class, 7-6, when Chatterley scored two points with a reversal with less than 20 seconds left. Lefler appeared to tie the score with an escape at the buzzer, but wasn’t awarded the point. The way Lefler wrestled against Chatterley was encouraging for Hill to see. Lefler lost a 14-1 decision the last time he faced Chatterley.
“Logan showed a lot of promise and wrestled really well against Chatterley in the semifinal match. Logan has a tremendous will to succeed, and still has time to improve before those few critical matches at the end of the season,” Hill said.
Warrior freshman Al Plant (140) finished in fourth place after being pinned by Darby’s Michael Majors in the second period. Curt Seidel (189) was also pinned in the second period in the consolation match.
“Curt Seidel is finding his way on the mat. Curt was one move away from the championship last weekend, but just went the wrong way and got caught in a bad position. But, he realizes his mistakes and has been working hard to improve upon them,” Hill said.
The Warriors scored 80.5 points to finish in fifth place in the 11-team field. Frenchtown dominated the tournament sending nine wrestler in the championship match and scoring 240 points. Thompson Falls finished in second with 140 points and Darby finished in third with 99.5 points.
