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The bar has been set high for Thompson Falls wrestling; and coach Ian Taylor wants to keep that bar up there on high.

Taylor’s Blue Hawks enjoyed one of the more successful seasons in recent TFHS wrestling history last year as they won second place in team scoring at the Western B-C divisional tournament and then took down sixth place in the State B-C tourney.

Seniors formed the backbone of the 2017-2018 squad as Kaleb Frank won the individual State B-C crown at 120 pounds, Jase Sorenson wrestled down third place at 170, Peyton Irvine claimed fourth at 152 and Austin Cooper fourth at 205.

With all those State B-C medal winners gone, junior Dakota Irvine, who won the divisional title at 205 pounds, and senior Garret Jones, who finished third at 113 at Western B-C, return as the Hawks’ tested veterans for this season. Both Falls grapplers fell only one match win short of earning State B-C medals in Billings in February.

A freshman last winter, Roman Sparks won the Western B-C title at 103 pounds but fell ill before competing at state and did not wrestle there.

“We will be pretty young this year but we have a pretty talented group,” Taylor said. “We will have some holes to fill in our lineup, it will be interesting to see how we do as a team.

“We set the bar for our program pretty high last year,” he added, “and want to keep it up there from now on.”

Taylor sees defending divisional champion Eureka as the team to beat in the Western B-C, but feels his Hawks, Florence and Mission-Charlo could also make some wrestling noise in the division.

The Hawks will open the season at the Polson Invitational, which will be held in Pablo at the SKC (Salish-Kootenai Center) for the first time Friday and Saturday. The Polson Invite generally attracts mostly Class A schools, a few local AA teams and a smattering of B-C teams, including Thompson Falls.

“Realistically, we don’t have the numbers to compete for the team title in Polson,” Taylor said. “We would like to place five or six of our kids and I think we are totally capable of that.”

Taylor sees his lineup forming something like this: Jones and freshman Trae Thilmony at 113 pounds; Sparks and freshman Shane Reishus (of Noxon) at 120 or 126; sophomore Gage Fuhrman at 132; sophomore Lucas Anderson at 138 or 145; sophomore Dane Chojnacky at 152 or 160; senior Cameron Lee at 160; Dakota Irvine at 182 or 205; and junior Seth Alarcon and senior Kane Smith at heavyweight.