The Thompson Falls Blue Hawks tied for 16th place in team scoring and put three grapplers on the podium as placers in the CM Russell Holiday Classic at Great Falls last week.

Going without one of their top guns in Jase Sorenson, the Hawks’ dominating 170-pounder, coach Ian Taylor’s Falls guys still scored 78 team points to tie the Forsyth Dogies for 16th place in the 53-team event.

In addition to being without Sorenson, who has already won two tourney titles this year and was second at 170 in the State B-C last winter, the Hawks also went without 205-pounder Austin Cooper, who came down sick, in Great Falls. Cooper had won the 205 title in the Kinney Classic in Superior only a week earlier.

Without Sorenson and Cooper in the lineup, freshman Roman Sparks (113 pounds) and senior Cody Garrison (152) went out and earned sixth place medals, and senior Kaleb Frank (120) a seventh place shiner to pace Thompson Falls in Great Falls.

Class AA Bozeman won the meet and nine of the 15 teams that finished ahead of the Hawks were AA squads, and four others were Class A schools.

“I feel pretty good about how we did. CM Russell, the host school was not that far ahead of us in the final scoring,” coach Ian Taylor said. “Most of the brackets had like 40-plus wrestlers and all the big schools were there.

“It was really good competition on a bigger stage and should help us later on,” he added. “Like when we wrestle in the state meet at Billings at the end of the season.”

A lot of time remains between now and then, however, and the Hawks will return to more local western Montana action this week. Thompson Falls was to have hosted a dual meet with Mission-Charlo Tuesday and will then compete in the Mission Mountain Classic, at Mission High School in St. Ignatius Saturday in the final action of 2017.