Wings Event Center, Kalamazoo 2021 MHSAA Team Wrestling Finals March 30, 2021 Welcome Clinton Reaches d4 Summit elcome to the MHSAA Finals! WThis is a classroom like no other, and now is the time for the final exam. Like the academic classroom, some have had good fortune along the way getting here; others have overcome adversity. Even today, a good bounce or a bad bounce will occur. Your athletic skills are put to the test, but more importantly, your discipline will be chal- lenged as well. To wait for the exact moment, use the right touch, make the right cut. Discipline also means testing your people skills. To embrace our diverse opponents as 22 equals, and to employ common decency – There’s a new name atop the MHSAA Division 4 every – single – moment. Win or lose. Team Wrestling mountain, and it’s Clinton. A year That’s the beauty of educational athletics. after finishing runner-up to perennial power Hudson, The takeaways today are not the trophies and Clinton took the final steps in ascending to the top, medals, but the life lessons learned and applied. defeating the Tigers at the 2020 Finals. Good luck to all! the mhsaa team wrestling finals — Mark Uyl InSIde MHSAA Executive Director 2020 Review . .2 The Road to the Finals - Brackets . .3 MHSAA Programs and Scope Division 1 Finalists . .4 School Sports Editorial . .MHSAA-1 Division 2 Finalists . .8 Scholar-Athlete Award . .MHSAA-2 Division 3 Finalists . .22 Finals Apparel . .MHSAA-4 Division 4 Finalists . .26 Winter Sports Finals on the Air . .MHSAA-5 Championship History . .30 Student Advisory Council . .MHSAA-6 Finals Notes . .32 Representative Council . .MHSAA-8 MHSAA Finals programs are produced by the Michigan High School Athletic Association, Inc., 1661 Ramblewood Drive, East Lansing, Mich.; Executive Director Mark Uyl. The Finals program series is designed by Rob Kaminski, and edited by Kaminski and Geoff Kimmerly. The rest of the MHSAA staff includes: Tony Bihn, Jordan Cobb, Sam Davis, Andy Frushour, Nathaniel S. Hampton, Scott Helmic, Dan Hutcheson, Cody Inglis, Camala Kinder, Cole Malatinsky, Peggy Montpas, Andrea Osters, Thomas M. Rashid, Brent Rice, Laura Roberts, Jon Ross, Adam Ryder, Jamie VanDerMoere, Faye Verellen, Tricia Wieferich, Kathy Vruggink Westdorp, Paige Winne, and Karen Yonkers. Cover Photo – Hockey Weekly Action Photos MHSAA Finals 1 OF THE CHAMPIONSHIPS OFFICIAL MAT MHSAA WRESTLING CHAMPIONSHIPS Train at home on mats made from the same high-quality materials as the mats used at the MHSAA RŵWrestlingZI'S RMIRXTSVXEFPIWM Championships!^IW Home Wrestling Mats ŵ:EVMIX]SJGSPSVW XLMGORIWWIW ŵ 'YWXSQWM^IWXSƤ XER]WTEGI ŵ %HHGYWXSQEVX[SVOXSER]QEX Home Mats starting at just $104, with FFreeree Shipping! I^ƥI\QEXWGSQ Finals Spotlight Stories from Paul Costanzo (1 & 3) and Jeff Chaney (2 & 4) for MHSAA Second Half Clinton Reaches Top Clinton 215-pounder Jack Voll wanted everyone to know that n 2019 when Clinton wrestling co-coach Jeff Rolland walked off the there was a new mat after the MHSAA Division 4 Team Final, he said, “Until someone champion in Division beats them, they are the one everyone in chasing.” 4 at the 2020 Finals. “They” were the Hudson Tigers, who had just beaten Rolland's up-and- comingI Clinton team to win their third-straight Division 4 title. So Rolland and his team went back to work during the offseason, recall- ing how they felt wrestling for a championship only to come up short against a program that is comfortable on that stage. Spin it forward one year to 2020, and Clinton found itself back on the big stage against the Tigers, and that hard work and self-confidence paid off. This time, Clinton beat Hudson 36-27 at Wings Event Center, clinching the first team wrestling championship in school history. "This took us believing in each other as a family," Rolland said. "We believe this program is a family, (kindergarten through 12th grade), to the parents and the community, and this took us digging down and focusing on who we are – focusing on us." That focus was tested even before this weekend began, as top-ranked dIVISIOn 3 dundee 44, Richmond 18 Clinton entered Friday’s Quarterfinals as the third seed in Division 4. Nobody was quite ready to definitively call the 2020 Dundee The team then had to go through a very tough New Lothrop team in the wrestling team the best in program history. But simply being in the Semifinals to get to Hudson. conversation says enough. "We felt we had enough. We just had to come and compete and prove The Vikings put an exclamation point on a dominant season by it," Rolland said. "We took on the mantra that it was us against everybody. defeating rival Richmond 44-18 in the Division 3 championship Until we prove, we are going to get the three seed, we are going to get the match at Wings Event Center. It was the third-straight title for hardest matches. And we said good." Dundee, and the program’s 12th overall. But it wasn't all good in the Final, especially early. The Vikings finished the season 23-1, won the Lenawee County Starting at the 119-pound weight class, Hudson jumped out to an 18-0 Athletic Association title, and qualified 13 of 14 wrestlers who quali- fied for the MHSAA Individual Finals. lead through the first four matches. Dundee won eight matches But then came the strength of Clinton's lineup, going on to win eight of in a row after the opening bout to the next nine weight classes to earn their first team title. put the dual out of reach. Aiden During that stretch, Clinton got technical fall victories from A.J. Baxter, Davis started the run with an 11- Kent McCombs and Brayden Randolph and a pair of pins from Logan Badge 3 major decision at 125, followed and Jack Voll. by Austin Fietz’s 6-4 overtime Badge said his team was not too worked up by being down so much win at 130. Dundee then put the early. top-ranked wrestler in the "We were still confident in ourselves," said Badge, a returning Individual Division on the mat in five of the next six weight classes, getting Finals champion. "We knew our capabilities, knowing we were able to score pins from Casey Swiderski (135) and Tyler Swiderski (above, 152), and get bonus points when we needed." and major decisions from Kyle Yuhas (140), Christian Killion (145), Dominic Lomazzo (160) and Stoney Buell (171). dIVISIOn 2 By the time the strongest part of Richmond’s lineup stepped on Lowell 53, Gaylord 4 the mat in the upper weights, the Vikings had clinched the title. When talking about a dynasty, Lowell wrestling coach R.J. Boudro says the cause and effect of his program’s reaches far outside of his wrestling room. dIVISIOn 1 Boudro and Red Arrows added to their dynasty in 2020 at the Wings Event detroit Catholic Central 34, davison 23 Center when they won their seventh straight – and 10th overall – Division 2 team Brendin Yatooma was blocking out all of championship with a convincing 53-4 victory over previously-unbeaten Gaylord. the noise at Wings Events Center. The Detroit The win extended the team’s MHSAA record for consecutive Team Finals Catholic Central senior 215-pounder proudly championships, which Lowell took over alone with their sixth in a row in 2019. hoisted the 2020 Division 1 MHSAA Team "Dynasty is a community; it's all about community," Boudro said. "It's about Wrestling Finals championship trophy over the kids. You see all of the young kids here today. It's about parents, it's about his head, a smile plastered on his face. community, and Lowell is a great community and we are lucky to be involved.” Yatooma and his teammates had just It didn't take long for Lowell to muscle claimed the school’s fourth straight title, control away from the Blue Devils. defeating Davison 34-23 in a match that pit- Starting at the 119-pound weight ted rival powerhouses and drew heightened class, Red Arrows senior nick Korhorn emotions across one corner of the arena. (right) won by technical fall, 15-0. From The title was the 14th in Catholic Central there, Lowell won 13 of 14 matches. history, but this was the first time the school had won four in a row. During that stretch, there were some very Emotions ran highest during a pivotal match at 189 pounds, big individual matchups – like the one at which featured two of the state’s best wrestlers in Davison’s Alex 145 pounds. Facundo and Catholic Central’s Manny Rojas. Facundo, a two-time There, Lowell three-time Individual Finals champion, was leading 5-2 in the second period when he was Finals champion Austin Boone scored a called for an illegal move. Rojas was evaluated on the mat for a con- major decision victory over two-time individual champion and three-time finalist cussion, and it was determined he could not continue. Catholic Chayse LaJoie, 11-3. Central was awarded six points for the match, which gave the Boone would write his name in the wrestling history book the next weekend Shamrocks a 23-18 lead. at Ford Field, becoming just the second wrestler in the state to win four individual Catholic Central (20-3) clinched the dual in the next two weight and four team titles. He joined former Davison legend Brent Metcalf in earning classes, as Yatooma and Steven Kolcheff (above) picked up pins at that achievement. 215 and 285, respectively. Davison (20-3) got decisions from Aden It was the second time in three years that Gaylord lost to Lowell in the Final.