Flathead, Glacier wrestlers roll on

SPOKANE, Wash. - Rolling along nicely.

Both Flathead and Glacier had terrific first days at the 18-team Pacific Northwest Invitational in Spokane.

Glacier took 12 wrestlers to the tournament and Flathead nine. The Wolfpack had nine winners in Friday's first round to seven for the Braves.

Weigh-ins today are at 7 a.m. with wrestling at 9 a.m.

Both coaches were pretty pleased with what they saw from their wrestlers.

"They wrestled really well today," said Flathead's Matt Owen.

"A few kids ... it wasn't their best matches, but overall it was pretty good," Glacier coach Mark Fischer said.

The Braves had to leave two wrestlers at home due to injuries suffered in Thursday's crosstown dual. Jake Stueben suffered a cut in his 135-pound win and Travis Ozegovich had a knee injury at 215 pounds.

With only nine athletes, "it's going to be tough for us to stay in the team hunt," Owen said.

But the Braves had a good shot at getting some individual champs.

Six of Flathead's wins were by pin - and all but one of those was in the first round.

Caleb Piasecki, Cody Tally, Larry Francis, Josh Erickson, Steel Hahn and Connor Thomas all pinned their opponents. Jeremiah Gaiser had a first-round bye.

Glacier winners were Alek Mitchell (pin) Zach Barber (decision), Lucas Mantel (pin), Cooper Sipe (pin), Grant Tafoya (pin), Shane St. Onge (pin) Riley Pisk (decision), Boyce Ballard (pin) and Joel Horn (pin).

"It's pretty much the perfect tournament to come off break," Owen said.

"The first couple rounds, the younger kids have a good chance of getting a win or two and pretty much all the kids will have some really good matches."

"It's a good tournament," Fischer agreed. "It's kind of fun because you don't really know who the kids are that you are wrestling. It gives our kids a chance to just go out and wrestle hard," he said.

"I thought it was a great day, sets us up nicely for (today). Hopefully we can punch a lot of those through to the semifinals and finals," Owen said.