Priest River with 12 top-3 seeds at districts

The Priest River wrestling team will be competing at the 3A District 1 wrestling tournament on Thursday and Friday.

The boys will start things off at 4 p.m. on Thursday at Bonners Ferry High School and the girls will compete at 4 p.m, on Friday at Coeur d’Alene High School.

At the 3A District 1 tournament, the top 3 placers get an automatic bid to state with the fourth place finisher having an opportunity at an at-large bid.

For the girls, it’s their first year having a sanctioned district tournament, so the path to state has been a little unclear.

One thing for sure, Helena White has an opportunity to qualify for state at 145 pounds.

“She’s been scrapping all year,” Priest River wrestling coach Quinton Holbrook said. “She’s got a meanness and swagger to go along with it.”

The boys are having one of its most successful seasons in recent memory, according to Holbrook.

“We have 12 guys who are seeded top three,” Holbrook said. “That’s better than we’ve had in a long time and I ‘ve got probably three or four guys that can win the tournament.”

Priest River is also a young team, with only two seniors on its team.

The Spartans also have quite a successful youth wrestling program that had more than 90 kids participate this year.

At 106, freshman Colm McLaimtaig is the number one seed.

He notably placed fourth at the North Idaho Rumble at Coeur d’Alene High School and sixth at Tri-State at North Idaho College on Dec. 18.

“If you can place at Tri-State, you can place at state,” Holbrook said. “He has a really good shot at doing something as a freshman.”

Hayden Sorbel is the number two seed at 113-pounds. He’s a two-time district champion.

“We have high hopes for him,” Holbrook said. “He’s had some trouble going up against the number one seed, but I think he can compete with him.”

At 126, Keith Poirier is the number one seed.

He’s a senior who has his eyes on placing at the state tournament in 2022. He made it to the end of the year tournament last year, but was one match shy of placing.

Priest River has a chance to have a head-to-head matchup in the finals at 132 pounds.

Caeden McLaimtaig is the second seed and Aiden Troumbley is the third.

“They’ve been talking about this matchup in practice,” Holbrook said. “Troumbley qualified for state last year and McLaimtaig is a sophomore.”

Austin Reeves is the number four seed at 152, but Holbrook has high hopes for the junior.

“We bumped him up to 152 and he’s been on fire,” Holbrook said. “He took a year off last year and he’s just been impressing us. He’s out there having fun and not overthinking anything.”

The final number one seed for the boys is 160-pounder Brad Bennett.

Bennett is a senior and Holbrook said he’s “wrestling tough at the right time.”

As for a team title, Holbrook is very optimistic about the Spartans’ chances of being crowned district champions.

“All the teams are neck and neck,” Holbrook said. “If everybody placed where they were seeded, we’d be off of first place by just a few points.”