March 1 at 5:30 10 different school will bring their grade school children for a wrestling tournament here in Big Sandy. If you want to get a good seat you have to go. Schools attending are Malta, Hays, Chinook, Havre, Fort Benton, Chester, Cut Bank, Shelby, and some Great Falls. Big Sandy has 16 athletes; seven are in the six and under, four are in the eight and under and the rest are in the 10 and under.
There will be eight mats of wrestlers competing at the same time. All 16 work hard. Coach Kyle Rodewald says, "This is the best team I've ever had. There are a lot of kids that it is just clicking. Everyone is doing really good on the mat."
He wants them to learn, "How to make themselves better. Get better than yourself. Just get better. Sometimes you'll have a bad week. It can just be a bad day. Quit looking at the red and blue marks"
They will need about 30 volunteers to help with the tournament. Two at each table for all eight mats. He'll need help rolling up the mats, moving it to the high school, and back to the Big Sandy Museum. He needs volunteers to work concessions and volunteers in the pairing room. MSU northern Team wrestlers will be the referees again this year. He'll need help in cleaning up afterwards.
Helping Kyle coach the Little Pioneers is Steven Boyce, Charlie Overbay, and Pete Sura. They want to thank the Big Sandy Museum for letting them practice there. They have better quality practices as they can concentrate on learning and not who's going through the annex.
Kyle was a wrestler himself in Corvallis at 135 pounds a tall skinny guy. It would have been hard to grab his legs to put him in a cradle (a wrestling position). "I hated to wrestle the short little stocky guys and they hated wrestling the big tall guy."
They have been working hard for a number of years in hoping to start a wrestling program again in Big Sandy. "Everybody talks about Big Sandy and how they used to be a power house. It's were we want to be", says Kyle.
Lippard-Clawiter Foundation has helped by donating money towards the new mat which he wanted to acknowledge and thank. The new mat cost $12,000 and with fund raising, working concession stands, and writing grants they were able to purchase one this year. The old mat was bought in 1995.
The Little Pioneer Wrestlers still have five meets to go 3/2 in Great Falls, 3/9 in Cut Bank, 3/15 in Malta & Browning, 3/16 in Great Falls, and the last one is state on 3/23 in Lewistown.
Little Pioneer Wrestling Tournament is March 1.
