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Richmond Takes Latest Dramatic D3 Final
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
February 25, 2017
MOUNT PLEASANT – It took 14 matches and eight steps through the dual meet tiebreaker criteria Saturday to decide the latest edition of the wrestling rivalry between Richmond and Dundee.
But when Criteria H showed a 17-8 advantage for Richmond in total first points scored, it was Blue Devils coach Brandon Day who turned to his team with a triumphant fist in the air, sending the Richmond wrestlers and crowd into hysterics.
“I walked to the table and (Dundee coach Tim Roberts) told me, ‘You already won,’” Day said. “I told him, ‘We’ve got to quit doing this.’”
Richmond prevailed in the back-and-forth Division 3 title match, which ended tied at 28 following a 4-3 win from Richmond 130-pound sophomore Hayden Bastian. The title is Richmond’s eighth, and first since 2015 when it defeated Dundee in somehow less dramatic fashion with a pair of pins in the final two matches.
“It’s crazy, you don’t know what’s going to happen – it’s like the lottery,” said Richmond senior 112-pounder Roy Costello, who had one of those pins in 2015, and won a 3-2 decision on Saturday night. “It’s really suspenseful, your heart’s beating 100 mph, you don’t know what’s going to happen.”
The two teams were deadlocked through the first seven criteria, which includes three varieties of penalty points assessed, total matches won, pinfalls, technical falls and major decisions. It was fitting for a rivalry that has dominated Division 3 since 2006, with the teams now having combined to win 10 of the last 12 titles -- Richmond with six and Dundee with four. Of those 10, seven were won against the other.
“Our programs are intertwined now because we’ve wrestled each other so many times in this situation,” Roberts said. “Today they were that much better than us. It’s pretty close, but they did that much better than us today, so they get to be champs this year. It’s close, but they won.”
The dual was tied three times over the final five matches -- 22-22, 25-25 and 28-28. The final tie was forced by Bastian, who recorded a takedown with less than 30 seconds remaining to send the match to the scorebooks.
“I was stressed -- I was so nervous that I wasn’t going to get a takedown,” said Bastian, who didn’t know if his win would give his team the title. “I’m fairly new to the sport. I started wrestling in seventh grade. I don’t really know much. My first match I didn’t really know what I was doing. I don’t know almost anything, I just go out there and wrestle my best.”
Bastian’s coach had plenty of confidence in him before sending him out onto the mat.
“Hayden Bastian is the best kid in the state nobody knows about,” Day said. “He made 130 for the first time here this weekend, and that was the difference.”
Added Costello: “Hayden performed awesome this whole weekend. Even though he’s not a state qualifier, he performed awesome.”
Dundee jumped out to a 22-9 lead in the match, getting pins from Sean Sterling at 160 pounds and Brandon Whitman at 189, a major decision at 145 from Tylor Orrison and decisions from Zachary Bellaire at 140 and Kyle Motylinski at 171.
Even with the lead, however, Roberts didn’t feel safe.
“We knew we needed more,” Roberts said. “We needed another win down there that we didn’t get. We knew we were kind of in trouble at 22-9. At 119 and 125, our guys did a nice job and came away with wins there, but we knew we were one win short when it was 22-9.”
Richmond stormed back to tie the dual with a major decision from Colton McKiernan at 215, a decision from Tyler Marino at 285 and a pin from Austin Kilburn at 103.
Kilburn’s pin ended a wild match against Dundee’s Caleb Fairchild, which saw both wrestlers taken to their backs in the opening period. Kilburn, a freshman, regained his composure and scored seven more points before getting the pin with 41 seconds left in the match.
Costello’s win put the Blue Devils up 25-22, but Daniel Jaworski (119) and Christian Killion (125) each won decisions for the Vikings to give them the 28-25 lead heading into the final match.
Richmond opened the dual with a pin from senior Owen Vannatter at 135 pounds, and after Dundee took a 7-6 lead with its wins from Bellaire and Orrison, Richmond sophomore Eric Barr pulled off an upset at 152 with a 3-2 win against Dundee’s Alex Motylinski.
“Eric Barr!” Day shouted. “Eric Barr knocked off No. 3 in the state. (Barr) didn’t make it out of our Regional. That was huge.”
The MHSAA Wrestling Finals are presented by the Michigan Army National Guard.
PHOTOS: (Top) Dundee (left) and Richmond faced off Saturday for the eighth time over the last decade of Division 3 Finals. (Middle) Dundee’s Sean Sterling works toward a pin during his match at 160. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
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Vance Bounces Back to Finish as Champ
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
March 10, 2020
It took a day for Tristan Vance to fully appreciate what he had accomplished.
The Clio senior won the Division 2 189-pound championship Saturday at the MHSAA Individual Wrestling Finals. Quite often, it takes some time before the gravity of the moment sets in. For Vance, that was partially true. But mostly, he was too sore to celebrate in a big way.
“That night, I was happy about it and celebrating about it, but I was so sore,” Vance said. “My back started spasming up right after the match. I was just so sore. I wanted to get home, and I wanted to rest. The next day, I was ecstatic.”
The spasms were nothing new to Vance, but rather a painful reminder of what he had to endure to get to this point. He missed more than half of the season because of them and didn’t return to the mat until the postseason.
While Vance himself wasn’t showing the elation and emotion that comes with overcoming what he did, his coach and father, Tony, certainly was understanding of the achievement.
“All I wanted to do is find my wife in the stands and give her a hug and kiss,” Tony Vance said. “It was the best feeling I think I’ve had since my kids were born. I got excited, and I kind of walked to the middle of the mat looking for her. I didn’t know where she was at, then I saw her waving to me. I climbed the wall and gave her a hug. It was such a struggle for him, and so much for us, too.”
The pain started late in the summer for Tristan, but it stemmed from a surgery he had as a 12-year-old. Back then, he was having back pain that effected the way he was walking. After consulting with multiple doctors, a benign tumor was found on his spine.
“I thought I had cancer, and I thought I was going to die – for like 10 minutes,” he said. “Until my mom was like, ‘That’s not what it is.’ After that, I’ve always been kind of chill, not too worried about things.”
The surgery to remove the tumor was successful, but that wasn’t the end of Tristan’s problems. He said he suffered from nerve damage and sciatica. His muscles were still tight, and he had to undergo rehabilitation for his left hamstring.
Eventually, he improved and blossomed into a star athlete at Clio, playing quarterback and linebacker on the football team and earning all-state honors (eighth place) on the wrestling mat as a junior.
That’s what made things even harder when the back pain returned.
“In middle school, none of that mattered to me,” Tristan said. “This year, it really kind of hit a soft spot. I was really depressed about it. I was kind of sure that I wasn’t going to be able to do anything.”
Tristan thought he had another tumor, but that was quickly ruled out. He was told that the smaller muscles around the hole where the tumor used to be were weakened and never fully recovered. The bigger muscles in his back were overcompensating, causing the spasms.
He decided, however, to play quarterback through the football season, even though he ran the ball a lot in Clio’s read-option offense.
“It got so bad where he couldn’t even run sometimes in games,” Tony Vance said. “He would play until he couldn’t play anymore.”
The motivation for Tristan was to play his final season with his friends on the football team. He did admit, though, that if he felt his wrestling season was truly threatened, he may have stopped.
When wrestling season began, the thought was to take things slow. Tristan returned to the mat in January, but his back acted up again in the New Lothrop tournament, and he was once again forced to sit.
“When I had to stop wrestling, it wasn’t because of the pain. It was because my muscles would contract and spasm, and I wasn’t able to do it physically,” he said. “It hurt my feelings. I was like, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to finish the season. I had four other guys on the team that ended up going to the state tournament with me, and I was seeing them do well and I was happy to see that, but I wanted to be part of that so bad.”
Tristan helped his teammates in the practice room, though he wasn’t sure if he would be able to compete again. As the postseason drew near, he began working out more and preparing for the possibility. The decision was made to put him into the lineup during the Team District and see how he held up.
“We ended up holding him out as long as we could,” Tony Vance said. “He wrestled (in the Team District) and felt pretty good, so I said, ‘All right, we’ll wrestle you in (Individual) Districts. I was worried, because I didn’t want to have another kid have to sit out, then take him all the way up to Gaylord and enter him into Districts and him not be able to wrestle.”
Tristan entered the District with a 10-2 record. He also entered at 189, despite having wrestled at 171 earlier in the season. He weighed around 180 pounds, and Tony Vance didn’t think adding a large weight cut to the stress already on Tristan’s body was a good idea. The bump didn’t bother Tristan, who was second in the District and first at the Regional.
He entered the Individual Finals as the No. 2 seed. But thanks to having wrestled so few matches, and the presence of undefeated Central Michigan recruit John Shelton of East Grand Rapids on the other half of the bracket, Tristan came in under the radar.
“I had a problem with that last season, where I kind of got in my head a little bit and too full of myself, which really affected me,” he said. “Coming in as an underdog – it wasn’t the most fun way for my last season to be, but it really helped with my mentality coming into the tournament.”
Tristan won handily in his first two matches before running into Fruitport’s Crue Cooper in the semifinals. Cooper was considered by many to be Shelton’s main competition heading into the Finals, but Tristan came away with the 3-1 overtime victory.
“I really wasn’t getting too excited about anything, to be honest,” Tony Vance said of his mindset coming into the tournament. “Me and my wife were just happy that he was able to wrestle again. He won a huge match in the semis. As the match was going, I was like, ‘Man. OK, he’s really looking good.’ After that match was done, I was excited. I thought, whatever happens from here, he’s made a good run. I wasn’t thinking that he was going to win it, I was just thinking that we’d see where it goes (Saturday), and I’ll be able to tell how he’s doing at the end of the first period.”
Tristan was calm as he entered his match against Shelton, even after he was informed right beforehand of Shelton’s credentials.
“I have never wrestled him before, and I have never seen him wrestle before because he’s on the west side of the state,” Tristan said. “My plan was mostly just to get to my tie-ups, get to my offense and do what I do best instead of waiting on what he can do.”
The match was tied at 3 after one period, and Tristan was able to take a 4-3 lead with an escape in the second. In the third period, Shelton chose down, and Tristan built an 8-4 lead thanks to a nearfall and a takedown. An escape and a stalling point put Shelton out of striking distance again, and he threw Tristan in a headlock as the clock was winding down. Tristan was able to get to his stomach, though, preventing the takedown or any back points.
“He has ice in his veins,” Tony Vance said. “He doesn’t have any doubt in himself, but he doesn’t show any emotion. He’s just calm and cool.”
After what could be his final competitive match – Tristan said he’s undecided about his future – he was congratulated by a host of spectators just off the mat, including his teammates and coaches from other schools.
Excited but sore, Tristan calmly walked through it all, not yet fully cognizant of the degree of his remarkable achievement.
“I had a lot of emotions through that time, and I wasn’t really thinking about (going through the injury) too much,” Tristan said. “I was just thinking about what had just happened. Now I’ve realized that I kind of accomplished a lot given my circumstances this year.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Clio’s Tristan Vance works to maintain control in his opening match of the Division 2 Individual Finals against Lansing Waverly’s Demitrius Webb. (Middle) Clio coach – and Tristan’s father – Tony Vance celebrates as Tristan finishes a semifinal win over Fruitport’s Crue Cooper. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)