Vision Quest

Dan Ward- Guy yelling things from the corner
Photos by Glenn Armstrong: https://photos.app.goo.gl/EjgMvTuqeXCfwBXv6

We can hear you coming
No, you’re not going to win this time
We can hear the footsteps
Way out along the walkway

That’s Lunatic Fringe by Red Rider. It’s from the soundtrack to the best wrestling movie ever, Vision Quest. It’s pretty accurate to how wrestling is, except in all my years of wrestling, I’ve never seen a coach wear a singlet, let alone a singlet over a polo shirt. Anyway, minus the sappy love story part, it’s about setting a goal and facing a challenge. This year’s goal is to win Districts and reclaim our title from DeWitt. We got a preview of that last night. But first, we had to get through #4 Fowlerville.

“We turned in a tough performance tonight. We wrestled Fowlerville to a tough match. I believe it was a much closer match than they expected, and we still have room for improvement,” said Coach Pettigrew.

The dual started out rough, with Fowlerville taking six of the first seven matches. Brayden Packer scored a Tech Fall of Brody Abendroth, Liam O’Neil pinned Abram Matice, Layne O’Neil pinned Jackson Armstrong, and Dominic Wheeler pinned Conner Skaryd putting the Gladiators up 23-0. Donovan Quinn extended his undefeated season to 18 with a Tech Fall over Fowlerville’s Justin Gutierrez, putting St. Johns on the board 23-5. Matt Jeffery pinned Jameson Halsey, stretching Fowlerville’s lead out to 29-5. Ryder Kleinschmidt got a decision over Reagan Ward and extended the lead to 32-5. St. Johns got on track with Tristan Densmore winning an exciting 10-9 match over Gavin Stankov, making the score 32-8. Tyler Riedel and Logan Finn gave St. Johns a few more. Tyler took an equally exciting 1-0 win over Connor Stankov, and Logan Finn got a fall over Dominick Simons. That made the score 32-17. Hayden Billings added to the score, winning 17-10 over William Shrader, making the score 32-20. Fowlerville put it out of reach at 38-20 when Jacob Hodge pinned Doug Thurston. Jaxson Densmore pinned Todd Darling to make the score 26-38. Brock Foster closed it out, pinning William Wharton. The Final Score was Fowlerville 44, St. Johns 26.

There is something extra nice when you beat your rival. DeWitt got the better of us at Districts last year, winning by 1 point. Coach Pettigrew said, “Taking on rival DeWitt and getting a win is always a great night. Keep grinding and never back down to a challenge. We wrestled well tonight when we were attacking with lots of offense.” It’s always tight when we go up against DeWit, and this year was no exception.

St. Johns started out on fire, winning the first seven matches. Abram Matice got a fall over Evan Thorne. Jackson Armstrong pinned David Torres-Pelaez. Connor Skaryd made sure he didn’t trip on his way out to take a void. Donovan Quinn pinned Will Chelotti. Jameson Halsey got an 8-3 decision over Judah Bakaitis. Reagan Ward got a Tech Fall over Joziah Maestas. Tristan Densmore wrapped up the onslaught with a pin over Milo LeFevre. The score was 38-0 at this point.

In wrestling, an insurmountable lead is 43, a perfect match, 14 weight classes time 6 pins is 84, half of 84 is 42, and so 43 is the magic number. Today on Sesame Street; Math. So, with the Redwings perched 5 points away from the victory, you are thinking, “Well, this one is over, I guess I can stop reading this.” But not so fast because DeWitt has firepower. In fact, DeWitt took the next 6 weight classes. If you refer back to your lesson, that means this came right down to the end.

Walk with me. DeWitt’s Trenden Bashore Pinned Owen Parker. Jackson Ryan scored a Tech Fall over Tyler Riedel. Rowan Reed pinned Hayden Billings. Tyler Bashore pinned Doug Thurston. Tegun Thompson pinned Jaxson Densmore, and Isaac Sova pinned Willian Wharton. I’ll do the math for you. That made the score 38-35 with one weight class left. Any bonus point win by the Panthers and St. Johns loses. Stepping into the ring were The Redwing’s Brody Abendroth and The Panther’s Justin Barkman. Cue the music.

Lunatic fringe
In the twilight’s last gleaming
This is open season
But you won’t get too far

Five minutes and 11 seconds later, it was all over, but the handshakes, getting his arm raised, was Brody Abendroth with the 17-1 Tech Fall. Final score 43 (see, I told ya) 35. St. Johns walks out of the gym with the win.

Coach Pettigrew said, “That was a good, gritty win. We will see them in a couple of weeks, and they will change some things around to try and get the win. We need to keep grinding.”

The Girls travel to O-E on Friday, and the Varsity is back in action at home on Saturday for a six-team dual tournament. Come out and watch us.