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It was a long time coming but well worth the wait.

Coach Shane Angle and his Plains-Hot Springs wrestling team finally hit the mats for actual competition last week, competing in a mixer with Arlee and Thompson Falls-Noxon in Arlee Friday and wrestling dual matches with Choteau and Bigfork in Bigfork Saturday.

Angle was happy with how his squad performed in Arlee. “We had a very good showing for our first real outing for a lot of our kids,” he said.

In Arlee, Drew Carey (120 pounds) went 1-0 with a pin win, Peter Carey (126) was 1-0 with a pin, Mason Elliott (132) was 0-1, Brady Schrenk (138) was 2-0 with two pins, Will James Courville (138) 2-0 with two pins, Brenden Vanderwall (145) 0-1, Brody Black (145) 0-1, Bert DeTienne (152) 1-1 with a pin win, Lily MacDonald (152) 0-2 and Stephen Yother (170) 0-2.

Jacob Schultze (120) and Stephen Schultze (126) each won an exhibition match by pin and David Schultze (132) wrestled Thompson Falls State B-C champion Trae Thilmony very tough before dropping a competitive 11-2 decision. P-HS heavyweight Denny Black also wrestled and lost an exhibition match in Arlee.

Against Choteau, DeTienne won a 9-4 decision and Yother won by pin. MacDonald won by fall in 2:54 over Choteau’s Anna Stultz at 160. MacDonald also wrestled Sadie Grove in an exhibition match, which Grove won by pin.

“Lily put on a very respectable display,” he said, “and this is why girls are making a statement in the sport.”

In the dual with Bigfork, Taylor Angle, coach Angle’s daughter, won by pin in 1:11 at 113 pounds to highlight P-HS’s efforts in that match. The Savage Horsemen lost six matches by pin and two by decision in the dual.

Donny Nelson (113), Angle, David Schultze, Black, Uski and Jacob Schultze all wrestled exhibitions against Bigfork as well.

Coach Angle said he misread the situation in the Bigfork dual.

“Sometimes you play the game and sometimes the game plays you,” he said. “I bumped up some of my wrestlers a weight to fill in some open spots and get some good matches in the dual, and it kind of bit me.

“We have a young lineup and Bigfork, simply put, out-muscled us,” he said. “They had a very strong lineup that we just couldn’t overcome. In the end it was an eye opener as to what we need to do and where we are at right now.”

Coach Angle said the Savage Horsemen will host a mixer match also involving teams from Clark Fork, Darby and Arlee in Hot Springs Saturday, and will then compete in a triangular dual with Thompson Falls-Noxon and Florence in Thompson Falls next Tuesday.

Angle said P-HS officials are also working on lining up a match with Mission January 29.