Mustangs place three

The Malta-Whitewater Wrestling team tied for eighth overall in the State B/C Wrestling Tournament at the Rimrock Auto Arena in Billings last weekend, placing three in the top six.

Eureka won the event with a commanding 198 points, Colstrip took second with 164 points and Ronan took third with 120.5.

Junior Trey Simanton led Malta placing third in the 138 pound class, scoring the team 19 of their 61 points in the B/C Tournament. It was the third time Simanton has placed at State, having placed fifth in 2016 and third in 2015.

Kaden Moore became a second time placer after placing fifth in the 132 pound class and Kolter Schipman placed sixth in the 120 class.

Simanton’s previous third place finish in 2015 was in the 113 class, 25 pounds lower than his current class.

“I don’t know if I like it,” Simanton said. “I like staying young and small, but I guess its life, you get bigger.”

Simanton won four of his five matches, the last of which was by a 7-2 decision over Fairfield-Simms’ Cole Giles, whom he had faced and defeated four times prior this season.

“He’s a tough wrestler, that’s for sure,” Simanton said. “I just knew how I had to shoot and which shot I had to do on him. Then I had to ride on top because he is hard to pin.”

Simanton had a near fall in the match, but he was unable to pin Giles this time.

“I have (pinned Giles before),” Simanton said. “But I got a little lucky with it one of those times.”

Simanton’s lone loss came in the semifinals to eventual runner up Jonathan Schmidt of Eureka by pin fall at 5:27.

After his loss, Simanton knew he could not live in the past.

“I just had to stop thinking about the match that I lost and continue on the match that I’m in and just wrestle my butt off and hope that I could come out with a win.”

Simanton appreciated the cheers heard from the Malta section during the team’s matches.

“I love the crowd coming out and watching us and cheering for us,” Simanton said. “It makes you feel better on the mat and if you lose it they always make it better for you. They help out a lot.”

Moore had placed for the second consecutive year, having placed third in the 132 class in 2016. Last weekend, Moore started with a bang, pinning Valier’s Kaleb Ververis in 1:10.

“I put him in a cradle,” Moore said.

The second match ended in controversy, as Moore lost in an overtime (11-9) sudden victory awarded to Hunter Connard, by way of a reversal, though Moore appeared to have a clear takedown.

“I was losing then tied it up,” Moore said. “I took the kid to his back and was starting to pin him. The ref never gave me my back points. So we went into overtime. I took the kid down; put him straight on his back with a cradle. Still didn’t get my points and he reversed it on me and got two points and beat me.”

Moore went on to pin Baker’s Terrell Koenig in 2:30 in the second consolation round and then Poplar’s Hunter Reum by pin fall at :42 in the third consolation round.

Moore would eventually lose to Wolf Point’s Quinn Whitmus by 6-3 decision, qualifying him for the fifth place match that he won due to Connard being unable to wrestle. Instead of the two wrestling for the second time, Moore’s hand was raised by the referee.

Schipman scored 13 points on his way to placing sixth in the 120 class at State. Schipman was 3-3 last weekend.

Schipman pinned Broadwater’s Justin Bergstad in the opening round, then lost to Daniel Uli of Plains-Hot Springs at 5:10.

Schipman would find momentum in the second and third rounds of consolation, pinning Huntley’s Blake Zimmerman (3:14) and St. Ignatius’ Bailey Wieble (3:49) respectively. The win over Zimmerman qualified Schipman to wrestle on day two, a feat that many Mustangs weren’t able to accomplish.

“I feel pretty good, I feel pretty excited about tomorrow,” Schipman said on Friday night. “I’m proud of Trey Simanton. He got to the semis. Kaden and I are coming back around hopefully to get third, the same with Travis. I’m proud of the boys that wrestled. They wrestled really tough. It sucks that they didn’t make it but I am proud of them.”

Schipman had made state for the second time in his second year of high school wrestling, but the nerves still hit initially.

“You get really nervous doing it,” he said. “It gets my heart pumping just being here. It doesn’t matter if you don’t make it. Just walking through the doors is a great feeling. I love it here.”

Travis Epperson just missed out on placing after losing out in the third round of the 182 class Consolation bracket.

Epperson entered divisionals around 170 pounds and won the Northern B championship, qualifying him for state.

At State Epperson weighed in at 175 pounds and went 2-2 in the tournament. His first win was due to forfeit by Poplar’s Tyson Sutherland. He would be pinned at :40 in the quarter final round.

He would then pin Colton Like of Fairfield Simms by half-nelson at 1:00. The two had previously wrestled in the Northern B Championship. He shared the key to his victory over Like.

“Keeping my head in it,” Epperson said. “Just because I beat him last time didn’t mean that I could beat him again. I told myself that and I ended up beating him a lot easier than I did last time.”

Epperson would be eliminated by Austyn Sherwood of Eureka by 6-2 decision.

Epperson believes that he will be wrestling in the same class next season and that the experience will come in handy.

“It was a good experience,” he said.

Other Malta Wrestlers that saw action included Andres Lopez who went 1-2 in the 170 class, Callan Mears who went 1-2 in the 126 class, Ceaton Mears who went 0-2 in the 145 class, Keenan Schipman who went 0-2 and Luke Lawless who went 0-2 in the 285 class.