Malta Wrestlers Compete in Duals, Scottie Invitational

The Malta Wrestling Team saw plenty of action last week as they hosted a 21 match dual with the Fairfield Eagles on Thursday, December 12, and then traveled to the Glasgow Mixer and Scottie Invitational on Friday, December 13, and Saturday, December 14, respectively.

Malta wrestling won 14 of their 21 matches against Fairfield last Thursday. Every single match was won by pinfall.

Malta Coach Jake French express pride in his team's performance in the Dual against Fairfield.

"I am really proud," Coach J. French said. "It's always good to see Fairfield to see where we are at as a team and in front of our home crowd, especially. I think that the boys got a little hyped and that's fun. Thank you to everyone who came out. We have some work to do as always."

He said it was a good night of wrestling for the young and new Malta wrestlers and expressed thanks to Fairfield for allowing the team to get some experience.

132: Alex Martian was pinned by Korban Pearson at 1:34.

132: Jonah Bucks pinned Colter Dowdy at 1:23.

138: Silas Young was pinned by Jeffery Burton at :31.

157: Trooper Stiles pinned Nick Snyder at :53.

157: Lane Salveson pinned Weston Murphy at 2:51.

165: Rylee Brusse was pinned by Wyatt Phillips at 3:19.

190: Straud Sims pinned Isaiah Talton at 3:20.

190: Kayden Green pinned Benjamin Rau at 3:21.

285: Skylar Gilkerson pinned Caden Leversee at 3:57.

285:Trevor Knowles was pinned by Sawyer Eaves at 3:30.

130: Carly Mears was pinned by Shienne McNary at 3:56

170: Ava Hanson pinned Daesey McNary at 1:47.

132: Bucks was pinned by Pearson at 4:47.

138: Spencer pinned Burton at 3:05.

157: Salveson pinned Snyder at 3:05.

165: Murphy pinned Brusse at 4:20.

190: Kenan LaBrie pinned Talton at :57.

215: Skylar Gilkerson pinned Rau at 4:12.

285: Zander Fuller pinned Leversee at :34.

285: Michael Love pinned Eaves at :19.

Love's pin of Eaves was this week's Quick-Pin.

Glasgow Meet

The Malta boys wrestlers were 15th of 29 teams with 71 points. Sidney won the boys' meet with 237.5 points. Glasgow was second with 166 points. Choteau was third with 139.5 points. Miles City was fourth with 129.5 points, and Conrad was fifth with 123.5 points.

The Malta girls wrestlers were 11th out of 30 teams with 41 points. Miles City won the girls' meet with 194 points. Baker was second with 146.5, Fort Benton was third with 85 points, Poplar was fourth with 74.5, and Big Sandy was fifth with 58 points.

The Malta boys were led by freshman Lane Spencer who took third in the 138 class and scored 23.5 points. He defeated Red Lodge's Jon Ebel by pin fall at 2:37 in the third place match. Spencer went 5-1 at the Scottie Meet.

Spencer was named Malta's Wrestler of the Week.

"He lost in the semifinals to a tough Sidney kid (Brenner Mullin), corrected his mistakes and he beat two returning state placers back-to-back to get third," Malta Coach Steve French said. "He not only beat them, he beat one kid 12-1 and pinned the other one. So, it was a pretty impressive showing after he lost in the semis."

Junior Straud Sims was third in the 175 class after winning the third place match against Ty Schepens of Sidney by 10-3 decision. Sims went 4-1 in Glasgow and scored a total of 20 points. His loss was a 6-3 loss to last year's state champion, Chris Graham of Conrad. Sims scored the first points of the match on a takedown.

Kenan LaBrie had 20 points in the 190 pound class and took fourth place. He lost the third place match to Conrad's Tegan Jones.

Coach S. French said that the two loses came from opponents that will be amongst the top wrestlers in the state.

Ava Hanson led the Malta girls with a third place finish in the Girls 170 class and scored 20 points. She pinned Roundup's Faith Kistenmacher in the third place match at :59.

Shaylee Hines was third in the 155 class and scored 16 points. Hines pinned Red Lodge's Mesa Wing at 1:34 in the third place match.

Amelia Johannesen was fifth in the Girls 190 class.

Carly Mears was seventh in the Girls 130 class and scored five points.

Coach S. French said that Mears continues to improve every week.

There was a tie for Most Exciting Match of the week. The honor went to Rylee Brusse and Carly Mears. Brusse's matches at the Malta-Fairfield Duals weren't only exciting for the Malta coaches.

"He brought the house down," Coach S. French said. "Both of his matches were with two inexperienced wrestlers, but there was a lot of effort there and it was a lot of fun."

Mears' earned the co-honor of Most Exciting Match in a win on Friday night, where she was down by 14 points and pinned her opponent.

"She was losing 15 to 1 and escaped, took the girl down and pinned her," Coach S. French said. When you're losing by 15, they stop the match due to technical fall. And so, she's one point away from getting beat and she got off the bottom, took her down and pinned her, and that was that really one that one got me dancing pretty good."