GREAT FALLS — The Great Falls High wrestling team had a disappointing end to last season, finishing fourth at the Class AA state finals and crowning only a single individual champion out of a possible six.
This season, the Bison said they're going to wrestle with a chip on their shoulders, looking for redemption from last winter's end.
"Fourth place is I think the lowest we've finished since I've been in high school," Kale Baumann at Tuesday's practice. Baumann finished as the 152-pound runner-up last year. "It hurts because we were in first like going into the last round. But I don't think there is a greater motivation than failure."
"We're all, you know, distraught by that, and we want to obviously come through with six winners, six champions," said Katie Slade, who finished third at 185 on the girls side. "It makes us go even harder here than we already do because we don't want to end like we did last year."
"We're bringing back some old-school mentalities," reigning 113-pound champion Cael Floerchinger said. "We got a couple tough kids in here and ... we want to prove to everyone that we're the toughest team in the state. We're the ones to beat."
Baumann and Floerchinger were two of the six finalists on the boys side, while Slade came just short of a championship match appearance for the girls.
Both Baumann and Slade said they're using last year's results as motivation.
"Second place last three years, I'm just determined to not let it happen again this year," Baumann said. "There's been very few four-time runner-ups in the state's history, and I'm not going to be one of them."
"I should have won (the semifinal match) that I lost," Slade said. "So it's really, you know, breaking. But (it) ... pushes me more every day in here."
Floerchinger — who won last year's title as a freshman — said he tries to be a leader for his teammates to help get them on that pedestal as well.
"I just kind of try to show them what you have to do to take another step to get to the next level," Floerchinger said.
There have been showings of a lot more effort in the room than in past years, as head coach Luis Carranza said.
"It's really good from our veterans, to returning state champs, to our first-year, first-day kids," Carranza said. "They're feeding off each other that way, and it's really good for the room right now."
All said they want to see the team have the more competitive wrestler on the mat no matter the match.
"I was to see us fight," Baumann said. "Every match. All six minutes, seven minutes, however long it takes."
"As long as we go out and fight as hard as we can, that's all that matters," Floerchinger said.
"Just progress and get better every time," Slade said.
"I just want them to compete," Carranza said. "Go out there, fight within the rules, be the tougher wrestler, and if we get beat, we get beat. I can accept that."
Great Falls' boys team heads down to Butte for the Mining City Duals on Friday and Saturday, and the girls will compete in the Whitehall Tournament.
