Wolf Point’s Garfield Earns Sixth Place At State Wrestling Meet
Wolf Point’s wrestlers competed in Shelby this weekend for the Class B state meet. Mason Garfield at 182 pounds and Chance Smith at 205 pounds competed for the Wolves.
Garfield earned sixth place and went 3-3 at the meet. He won his first match against a senior from Simms. He then faced the top seed from Thompson Falls-Noxon. “This was a really good match. It got a little chippy out there,” Wolf Point coach Scott Vandall said. Garfield lost by a 6-2 final.
He then faced a wrestler from Lincoln County and earned a victory in that match.
On Saturday morning, Garfield received a bye fall against a Harlem wrestler. He then lost in the final three seconds against a senior from Shelby.
In the fifth/sixth place match, Garfield dropped the match in three overtimes against a wrestler from Thompson Falls/Noxon.
“We are very proud of Mason. For myself, it was an emotional day,” Vandall said. “The first match Saturday was hard for myself. The Harlem kid, Lance Blackcrow, we have gotten to know really well. His dad and I have become friends over the last six years and that was a match I really didn’t want to see. But we had one heck of rematch with the Thompson Falls kid. Man, all eyes were on that match. It was fun to watch and fun to see.”
Chance Smith, a freshman at 205 pounds, went 0-2 on the meet. He had the number one seed out of the west form Simms. He lost this match.
“The other kid came out really aggressive. He was a senior,” Vandall said.
Smith then wrestled a wrestler of our division out of Shepherd. “Chance had a lock up, a throw and we almost had it. He just wasn’t able to drive through to get the take down,” Vandall said. “Then we went for another and got caught. But time ran out in the round. We had another chance to get a throw. But just wasn’t able to get it. Chance lost out. We are very proud of him. He was the only freshman in that weight class. He was given up strength and never backed down. He was there and in the fight. We will work on getting stronger over the off season. We have a plan to trim up and put muscle on.”
Vandall said, “We are very happy with the efforts of the weekend.”
The Wolves faced many challenges. Vandall said, “Not sure what happened in the morning session, that session ended up almost two and a half hours longer then schedule. We sat in the gym almost eight hours before getting on the mat. We left the school in Shelby at 10:30 p.m., got to the motel in Chester at 11:30 p.m.. got some food and then headed back to Shelby at 6 a.m. All the heavier kids in the meet were tired. But we strapped up and toed the line as we say and went to work.”
Vandall added, “We had a good year for both boys and girls as we placed kids in each state event. We’re happy but not satisfied we want more and that just our competitor spirit. Once again, I want to thank our kids and parents for their efforts and support.”
The coach noted, “I would like to thank my coaches Tyler Sterling and Tristan Kemp, these guys put a lot of hard work and time in with these kids and it paid off. Like to thank the Northern Plains Independent for the news coverage on the year. Most of all, thanks to my wife and mom for being my biggest supporters. And thanks to Cody our AD. This was a crazy year with COVID, hard to get things done and he did and we were just happy to get a chance. Next season starts Monday and we are looking forward to the off season.”
