Chiefs experience 'growing pains' at Owen, prep for Mining City Duals

The Ronan High School wrestling team experienced growing pains as they began the season at the Owen Invitational with only six participants but it is still part of the transition they will experience beginning the 2017-2018 season.

Last year, the Chiefs’ wrestling program finished third and returned defending state champion Noah Cheff, now a junior, from last year’s successful team.

Ronan is also replacing former Chiefs’ coach Brian Muir, who was replaced with Dylan Kramer, a coach that boasts of several years of experience as assistant coach and has his first-ever head coaching job out of Montana Western University.

The Chiefs, who experienced several injuries and illnesses during the Thanksgiving break, are still “shaking off the rust” according to Kramer.

“We are trying to still get back into wrestling mode,” Kramer said. “We are now competing at the highest level and you also have to see where we are. The invitational is a good marker to see where you are at.”

Noah Cheff, who was last year’s Montana High School Activities Association Class B-C wrestling champion at the 132-pound weight class, ended up picking up where he left off and placed fourth in the tournament.

“There were some good moments and Cheff took fourth and wrestled really hard,” Kramer said. “He had a couple of good matches and he was doing what we expected of him. He has done a good job being really coachable and was able to find some success in the tournament.”

At the Owen Invitational, the Chiefs were hit hard by injuries and illnesses, according to Kramer.

“This weekend we were hit pretty hard over sickness and the holiday break didn’t help us either,” Kramer said. “We are still getting back into wrestling mode and we are digging in. We have dedicated ourselves with a purpose and a cause.”

With the six wrestlers that did participate, Kramer said he saw some good highlights.

“We saw some highlights and we saw some good things in the first tournament,” Kramer said. “We are working in the practice room and are able to excel at the weaknesses by working on them. We are having a tough time being in shape to wrestle a full match and early in the season, that is an issue.”

The Chiefs will now go to another famous regional tournament called the Mining City Duals on Dec. 8-9 in Butte.

“The top level is pretty high and there are a lot of tough Class A and Class B schools and competition levels,” Kramer said. “You will expect to rise up to expectations with close to a full team to be able to compete.”

Kramer said he felt his team remained competitive at the start of the season and expects his team to improve as they get into “wrestling mode.”

“I thought Friday we competed well and wrestled really hard (as a team),” Kramer said. “We were really physical and competed at a high level. Saturday we started off a little bit slow. We had a lot of good moments and a lot of good things. There is always some valuable coaching moments and the kids learn from their mistakes at this time and keep getting better as we head towards the state tournament.”