The Post Season
Dan Ward- Guy yelling from the corner

His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There’s vomit on his sweater already, mom’s spaghetti
He’s nervous, but on the surface, he looks calm and ready

OK, OK, OK… First, I made a mistake. I’m as surprised as you, but it happens. You can only bump a wrestler up one weight class. Sorry to anybody who went out and tried to move their wrestler up two weights (I’m kidding).
Now that that’s out of the way…

Post-season wrestling tournaments can be brutal. Only the top four qualify to move on. So if you are wrestling in the first round, the “Round of 16,” you have to win your first match, or you won’t be able to advance to the top four. If you win in that round, you advance to a double-elimination tournament for the top four spots.

Then there is the Round of 12, the Consultation Semifinals, The Blood Round.
“If you don’t know, they call this the ‘Blood Round’. More civilized people refer to it as the round of 12, but hey, we’re a wrestling family. It’s where you win, you’re in, you lose, you’re out. Get your hand raised this round, and your name’s in the history books as an All-American.
The wrestlers know what’s on the line. The name ‘Blood Round’ comes from the tooth-and-nail, knock-down, drag-out wars we see every year during this session. And there are some dandies. There’s so much talent, it’s not easy to grasp that some of these guys won’t place.”-Willie Saylor.

Watch the blood round at any weight and see what wrestling means to the athletes and coaches. One corner will erupt with joy at realizing they have qualified for the next tournament. One corner will be grief-stricken, realizing that their season and possibly their career has ended on the mat. As coaches, we have all celebrated as our wrestlers advanced and had to console a wrestler (that more than likely, we would have given our right arm to help them advance) deal with the fact that everything they have been working for has ended. It’s heartbreaking, and it happens 28 times a tournament.

The Varsity Boys wrestled in Fowlerville on Saturday in the MHSAA Individual Districts. They advanced 4 wrestlers through to the Regionals next week. Advancing were:

215 lbs Abram Matice placed 4th

165 lbs Brady Heibeck placed 4th

190 bls Brody Abendroth placed 3rd

106 lbs Donovan Quinn placed 1st

Photos by Glenn Armstrong

The full results were:
At 190, Brody Abendroth (35-8) went 3-1 and placed 3rd
At 215, Abram Matice (23-17) went 3-2 and placed 4th
At 285, Jackson Armstrong (9-17) went 0-1
At 106, Donovan Quinn (28-1) went 3-0 and placed 1st
At 126, Jameson Hasley (12-26) went 0-1
At 126 Reagan Ward (28-16) went 2-2
At 138, Tyler Riedel (30-20) went 2-2
At 144, Logan Finn (10-12) went 0-1
At 150, Hayden Billings (19-21) went 1-2
At 157, Jaxson Densmore (17-10) went 2-2
At 157, Doug Thurston (13-18) went 2-2
At 165, Brady Heibeck (32-13) went 2-2 and placed 4th

Donovan, Brady, Brody, and Abram will compete in Individual Regionals in Chelsea on Saturday, and they will have the chance to advance to the State Finals. Congratulations!

Let’s talk about girls wrestling for a minute. According to the AP: “Girls’ wrestling has become the fastest-growing high school sport in the country, sanctioned by a surging number of states and bolstered by a movement of medal-winning female wrestlers, parents and the male-dominated ranks of coaches and administrators who saw it as a necessity and a matter of equality.

Where once girls wrestled on boys’ teams and against boys, increasingly, they are wrestling on girls’ teams and against girls. And now that they are wrestling in sanctioned and official tournaments against girls, their names are going onto plaques on their high schools’ walls and into state record books.”

From NCAA.com: The NCAA added women’s wrestling as its 91st championship sport, providing another athletics opportunity for female athletes to compete. Divisions I, II, and III approved the addition at the Association’s annual Convention this week in Nashville, Tennessee.

Women’s wrestling now advances from the NCAA Emerging Sports for Women program to become a national collegiate championship, featuring female athletes from all three divisions competing against one another. The NCAA’s first women’s wrestling championship will be in 2026.

It’s an exciting time for women’s wrestling, and any chance we get to increase the number of women in our sport is great. Plus, female athletes can now earn scholarships to compete at the next level. It really is an exciting time. If you have girls who are considering wrestling, please encourage them.

The St. Johns Girls Varsity competed in the Girls Individual Districts on Sunday in Montrose.

All our girls are Sophomores, and only one wrestled last year, so their success is a tribute to their hard work and how much heart they put into the sport.
The results from Sunday were:
At 235, Addyson Ney (5-15) went 1-2
At 115 Haley Prohaska (7-19) 1-2
At 125, Olivia Pettigrew (26-11) went 3-0 and placed 1st
At 130, Lori Morris (20-18) went 0-2

Olivia will compete in Individual Regionals in Howell on Sunday with a chance to advance to the State Finals. Congratulations!

125 lbs Olivia Pettigrew placed 1st

On Wednesday, the Boys’ Varsity Team will face off against a strong Eaton Rapids team, and Fowlerville and Adrian will tie up on the other mat. The start time is TBD.  The winners will meet to advance to the MHSAA Team State Finals. (Editors note: I wasn’t able to get this posted in time.  The Team Regional was yesterday.  Results should be posted soon.)