This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate
Reed City's Barron Bowman (right) attempts to take down Chippewa Hills' Teddy McGregor during wrestling action on Thursday.
Pioneer photo/John Raffel
REED CITY – Winning team district wrestling championships never gets old for the Chippewa Hills Warriors.
The Warriors overcame an early 21-3 deficit to defeat Reed City 43-27 to win its 18th straight Division 3 championship at RCHS on Thursday.
Chippewa Hills will host the regional next Wednesday.
After falling behind by 18 points after losing four of the first five matches the Warriors turned the tide by outscoring the Coyotes 40-6 and taking eight of the next nine matches.
It wasn’t an easy district title for the Warriors to win.
“Every one is hard in its own way,” Warrior skipper Tyler Vogel said. “This is my first as head coach. It’s pretty cool. All credit goes to the kids. They showed up today.”
Chippewa Hills had beaten Reed City under similar individual results during the regular season.
“They had some more than they did the last time and we ran some kids at different spots,” Vogel said. It was a similar score the last time (46-27).”
Chippewa Hills is 12-4 overall.
Reed City opened with a 6-0 lead at 190 pounds when Bryson Hughes pinned Nathan Thayer in 2:43.
The 215-pound match went to CH’s Isaiah Lake in overtime 2-1 over Noah Morgan, making it 6-3. It was lengthy match with several blood time outs and injury time outs. The winning point in overtime came when Morgan was whistled for stalling.
“It was tough,” Morgan said after the match. “It could have gone either way. I beat him in triple overtime during the conference meet.”
It was Wyatt Spalo (285) for RC pinning Jack Rossa in 3:48 and Carter Johnson (106) pinning Natalie Gibson in 1:25 for an 18-3 Coyote lead.
RC’s Barron Bowman (113) took a 9-7 win over Teddy McGregor. CH’s Lindsey Gibson (120) defeated JD Adrianse 3-0 and Warrior 126-pounder Adrionn Lucas pinned Brock Cutler in 18 seconds to cut the Coyote lead to 21-12.
Raymond Irwin (132) got four more points for Chip Hills with a 13-2 major decision over Miles McCarthy.
Chippewa Hills took its first lead of the night, 22-21, with five matches remaining, when at 138 pounds Tyler Geer pinned Elijah Lentz in 5:22.
The Coyotes initially sustained a major blow at 144 when Izaiah Lentz was whistled for flagrant misconduct and Tyler Saxton picked up six points for a 28-21 CH lead. But the decision was reversed and the match resume with Saxton leading 6-2 and one period remaining. Saxton won it 6-2 and the lead was 25-21.
Lentz was called for biting but after a check with the Reed City trainer the official ruled it was nonintentional. Otherwise, Lentz would have been suspended for this Saturday’s individual district tournament at Big Rapids and ineligible for the entire post season.
“He hit him with a crossface and had the upper teeth marks from the arm,” Reed City coach Roger Steig said. “He wouldn’t have been able to wrestle this weekend so kudos to the referee for making the right decision.”
Jon Koepf (157) pinned Connor Ward in 35 seconds for a 31-21 lead.
Hunter Sellers got a pin over Andrew Kiaunis in 1:02 for a 37-21 lead which clinched the win for CH.
Hunter Fagan for RC at 165 pinned Isaac Toogood in 1:12. CH Austin Humphrey (175) ended the night with a pin in 28 seconds over Braylen Saxton.
“It was a tough win against a good team,” Lake said. “Reed City was definitely here wanting to beat us. We wrestled really hard. We won a lot of tough matches.”
Reed City ends its team season at 25-11.
“Chippewa Hills is tough,” Steig said. “I have to give them a lot of credit. We needed to win at 215 and 138. Geer is a tough kid. Elijah is too. We knew that was one we had to turn around to get the win. It didn’t happen, so best of luck to them.”
Both Vogel and Steig expect to have a lot of their wrestlers place in the individual district this weekend at BRHS.
