Wrestling Starts out the New Year
Dan Ward- Guy yelling things from the corner

Last night took an L, but tonight I bounce back
Wake up every morning, by the night, I count stacks

When wrestling hits the mats in January, it’s full steam ahead. Unfortunately for the boys varsity, that full steam ahead ran right into the Division 2 5th-ranked Mason Bulldogs and the Division 3 7th-ranked Portland Raiders.
The Redwings are young this year. There are only four seniors on the team and only one currently in the varsity line-up. That’s both a curse and a blessing. With those few seniors, obviously, the experience is not what you’d like to see. However, what this really means is that there are a lot of underclassmen getting quality mat time against quality opponents, building a team that will be tough to beat in the coming years.

First up last night was Mason in a CAAC Red clash. Mason was a Team State semi-finalist last year and hopes to make a deep run again this year. We started out at 150 with Matt Ausel over Hayden Billings (Fall 1:42), 157 saw CJ Church over Doug Thurston (MD 15-6), and 165 with Dylan Granger over Brady Heibeck (Fall 3:46). Putting St. Johns in a 16-0 hole. St. Johns got on the board at 175 with William Wharton over Anderson McElmurray (Dec 11-9), making the score 16-3. At 190, Gavin VanKirk beat Ayden Marchek (Fall 1:05), and at 215, Brayden Egan beat Abram Matice (Fall 3:06), extending Mason’s lead to 28-3. St. Johns got back on the winning side at 285 with Gavin Moreno winning over Jesse Taylor (Fall 3:06), adding 6pts and making the score 28-9. The Bulldogs and the Redwings traded pins at 106 and 113, with Alex Martinez getting over Connor Skaryd (Fall 0:45) and Donovan Quinn securing the fall over Rene Gonzalez (Fall 1:44). With Mason’s six and St. Johns six, the score was 34–15. At 120 and 126 Mason added 9 more points with Michael Dennis over Jameson Halsey (Fall 2:00) and Cecilia Williams over Reagan Ward (Dec 12-5), pushing the score to 43-15 and putting the match out of reach. At 132, Tristan Densmore scored St. Johns last points of the dual with a win over Jakob Mullin (Dec 8-4), making the score 43-15. Wrapping up 138 and 144, Darius Ambs over Tyler Riedel (Fall 0:59) and Boone Smith over Xavier Benjamin (Fall 1:50). Those 12 points made the final score 55-18.

The Portland Raiders were next up; St. Johns and Portland are very familiar with each other, having met at Fowlerville and Ionia invites this season. Portland went up 4-0 with Mason McGregor over Doug Thurston (MD 14-2) at 157. St. Johns got those points back at 165 with Brady Heibeck over Landon Espinosa (MD 14-0), and we were knotted up 4-4. At 175, Landon Guilford (Portland HS) pinned Jaxson Densmore (Fall 3:11), making the score 10-4 190 and 215 saw the Raiders extending their lead out to 15-4 with Bradley Meyers over William Wharton (TF 16-1 3:41) and Gunnar Williams over Abram Matice (Fall 3:35). 285 saw an exciting “double overtime” match with Gavin Moreno getting a 2pt reversal as time ran out over Barrett Spitzley (TB-1 6-5). That gave St. Johns 3 points and made the score 21-7. Portland extended their lead to 27-7 at 106 with Tommy Sands over Connor Skaryd (Fall 4:26). Donovan Quinn’s win at 113 over Branlun Simon (Portland HS) (Dec 5-1) cut into Portland’s lead making the score 27-10. At 120, it was Portland’s Landon Lanz over Jameson Halsey (Fall 1:42), making the score 33-10. Reagan Ward got a win over Sawyer Dakin (Dec 5-0) at 126, and Tristan Densmore pinned Andrew Feldpausch (Fall 1:02) at 132, giving the Redwings making the score 33-19. That’s as close as the score got, though, as Portland closed the dual out with Issac Kramer over Tyler Riedel (Fall 0:15) at 138, Zach Stanton over Xavier Benjamin (Fall 5:03) at 144, and Griffin Opperman over Hayden Billings (Fall 3:54) at 150. The final score was 51-19.

The Girl’s team was also in action last night. Girls wrestling was different as Portland had a large number of girls, and St. Johns and Ionia had smaller numbers. So St. Johns and Ionia combined with Ionia to take on the Raiders. Results for the Lady Redwings were:
Alexis Pettit (Portland HS) over Haley Prohaska (Fall 0:38) at 115
Lori Morris over Annabelle Brown (Portland HS) (Fall 1:14) at 125
Kyla Fuller (Portland HS) over Olivia Pettigrew (Fall 2:52) at 135
Rylan Johns (Portland HS) over Addyson Ney (Fall 0:53) at 235
Amari Adler (Portland HS) over Haley Prohaska (Fall 1:10) at 115
Lori Morris over Elenor Hyland (Ionia HS) (Fall 4:29) at 135

Monday night saw the JV boys in action in Lowell at the Lowell JV Jamboree. The boys wrestled very well, with most wrestlers getting 3 matches and everybody taking at least one win. St. Johns took 16 boys and only lost 16 matches in total. Results were:
Austin Clark 1-2
Ayden Scheffler 2-1
Cam Lange 1-1
Ayden Marchek 2-1
Oliver Nobis 1-2
Jesse Mason 1-2
Aedin Besonen 1-1
Michael Grow 1-1
Logan Finn 2-0
Keegan Hamilton 2-1
Garrett Bloom 1-2
Roman Berkhousen 3-0
Conner Skaryd 3-0
Colton Robbins 1-1
Dray Findlay 3-0
Logan Banner 1-1.

The JV is back in action on Friday at the New Lothrop JV Inventional. The girls are also wrestling on Friday at New Lothrop, and the Varsity Boys are wrestling at New Lothrop on Saturday. Next week, the JV boys are at the Lakewood JV Jamboree, and the Varsity Boys and Girls are finally at home on Wednesday.
Wednesday is also Senior night, so please come out and help us thank our seniors for all their hard work and pay respects to Tristan Bancroft, who passed away this summer.

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