White Pigeon Emerging as D4 Hopeful
January 10, 2017
Ten years removed from a Regional Finals appearance, the White Pigeon wrestling program has awakened from its hibernation.
The Chiefs’ 18-7 overall record isn’t particularly astonishing. But given that several losses were to bigger schools outside of the state of Michigan, including three to Indiana squads this past weekend, it’s a solid mark so far.
A victory over third-ranked (in Division 4) Decatur earlier this year opened White Pigeon’s eyes as to how good it could be this winter.
“The kids’ resiliency and perseverance,” 14th-year head coach Jay Sosinski said when asked what has stood out to him this season. “It doesn’t matter to them who they’re going up against. Big or small, good or bad, they go out there and wrestle hard and give it their best. That’s all I’ve ever asked of any of my teams. They do it probably better than any team I’ve had before on a consistent basis.”
To put that statement in context, Sosinski hypes his team as often as most people stick to their New Year’s resolutions.
There’s no denying that confidence has trickled down to the individual wrestlers, four of whom are among the top-10 ranked athletes in their respective weight classes in Division 4 by MichiganGrappler.com.
Ranked No. 3 at 130 pounds, sophomore Kyle Black is 22-2 on the year and eyeing a return trip to the MHSAA Finals. He’ll likely drop down to 125 to do so. Classmate Evan Atherton is ranked No. 10 at 130 but has since moved to 125.
“It makes us feel good,” Atherton, who is 20-3, said of the high praise from Sosinski, “because they used to talk about how there used to only be three kids on the team. “I’m pretty excited about it. It pushes me harder.”
Junior Nate Weber is 21-4 and ranked No. 6 at 135. He, too, will probably move down a class by the end of the year in order to try to get back to the Palace of Auburn Hills. Meanwhile, senior Hunter Rummler, ranked No. 7 at 171, just eclipsed the 100-victory mark for his career over the weekend and is pushing toward his first Individual Finals appearance.
Especially for the young men in the lower weights, stiffer competition is rarely found outside their own practices this year.
“We do a lot of live wrestling in the room, and it sure helps to have those guys around with all the variety it brings,” Weber said. “Me, Evan and Kyle all wrestle different styles. We see all these different techniques, and it sets us up to wrestle all these other teams.”
Black had just one word to describe practice sessions: “Intense.”
The other word that came up frequently was inspiration. The source? Sosinski.
“I would never have guessed that is the answer they would have given,” Sosinski said with a laugh. “As a wrestler myself and growing up in the sport, when people get beat, either as an individual or a team, I know how that feels. They beat themselves up and are upset. Me being upset with them or screaming and yelling at them doesn’t make them feel any better.
“I believe it probably makes them feel worse and can have a negative effect. My goal is to help them reach their goals. I’m happiest when I see them reach their goals and their potential. If being more soft-spoken and more of a fatherly type figure and voice does that, and it has worked so far, that’s what I’ll continue to do.”
With only two seniors on the varsity roster, the Chiefs are undefeated in the Berrien-Cass-St. Joseph Conference. Rummler, who said reaching the century mark “hasn’t really hit me yet,” knows the strength of the team is in the lower and middle weights, which includes stalwarts Hunter Jourdan, Sebastian Castro and Carlos Castro, and feels a responsibility to hold up his end of the bargain.
For Rummler, a gifted running back and sprinter, most of the battle is mental — a fight he admits struggling with last season. Sosinski believes the senior is primed for a noteworthy finish to his career.
“He is confident,” Sosinski said. “I believe he has high goals and expectations of himself. He is confident he will meet those goals. Sometimes you need that swag, I guess. If I had to take a guess at (what’s different this year), just from knowing him for four years, it’s just his mentality.”
The same can be said for the rest of the wrestlers on the team, many of whom have sacrificed for the betterment of the squad.
“They want to be good as a team, and that’s first and foremost,” Sosinski said. “They have their own individual goals in their head, but they’re finding a way to do both.”
Wes Morgan has reported for the Kalamazoo Gazette, ESPN and ESPNChicago.com, 247Sports and Blue & Gold Illustrated over the last 12 years and is the publisher of JoeInsider.com. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph and Branch counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) White Pigeon’s Kyle Black works to gain control during a match against Berrien Springs. (Middle) Evan Atherton, here working from the top, also powers the Chiefs’ strong lower weights. (Photos courtesy of Wes Morgan.)
Cushman: Good to Great to 101 Straight
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
February 14, 2018
Flushing’s Ben Cushman wanted to be better than good on the wrestling mat.
After his sophomore season ended in at the MHSAA Finals, one win shy of the podium and all-state honors, Cushman decided to do everything he could to become great – to be able to compete with the state’s elite.
One hundred and one straight victories, one Division 1 individual title and a signed letter of intent to Central Michigan University later, it’s safe to say he’s accomplished that.
“I think a lot of it was just getting beat,” Cushman said. “I got beat by Brendan McRill (a former MHSAA champion from Davison), and just always got beat by guys like him. I just changed up my whole technique. Before I was just always shooting double legs. I didn’t really have a good takedown that was effective against other wrestlers.
“I really looked at a lot of film, looked at all the mistakes I made and what I could have done better.”
Cushman won the Division 1 title at 215 pounds as a junior, becoming Flushing’s first Finals champion since 2000. He’s 45-0 as a senior this winter, and he recently won a District title to keep alive his opportunity for a run at a repeat championship, although this season he’s back at 189 pounds.
He has yet to be taken down this season, allowing only escape points to his opponents through those 45 matches. He’s only been taken down once in the past two years. It’s a stunning run of dominance, and to those looking in from the outside, it appeared to come out of nowhere.
“He’s been around (wrestling) for a long time, so most people in Michigan knew who he was,” Flushing coach Andy Rishmawi said. “I think he surprised people in the way he went about it. He wrestled a lot of good kids, and last year we put him up against everybody, and he went undefeated and had one offensive point scored on him all year. So to me, I think the way he went about it, I think that surprised some people.”
It wasn’t a surprise to Rishmawi and Cushman, however, as they saw what he went through each day to get there.
“Coming into his junior year, he was just focused and ready, and working out all the time,” Rishmawi said. “In the weight room, on the mat, working on his form, working on his technique, just really understanding more how you do certain things. There was a huge growth in him.”
While Cushman was working to add more to his repertoire, the focus remained on simple things – and doing those simple things incredibly well.
“We would just take it day by day,” he said. “There was one thing that Coach would want me to work on, which is just pulling the elbow. We would do that for a half hour straight until I got it down perfectly, and when we would wrestle live, I would work on other moves off of that. I kept doing that until it became second nature.”
Rishmawi said the raw ability was always there with Cushman, calling him freakishly strong while at the same time extremely coachable. Because of the latter, Cushman has been able to maintain that same level of focus in practice, despite the fact he’s already established his dominance in the state.
“When you’ve dominated people and you’ve had such a good run, you wouldn’t expect to have coaches still screaming in your ear about a move you might have done wrong,” Rishmawi said. “Let’s say he’s doing a 30-second drill. We know that the person he’s wrestling against can’t keep up with him, so he needs to get six takedowns instead of five. During sprints, we’re in his face. While he’s working on a move, we’re in his face. He understands, ‘They’re really trying to help me.’”
Cushman has remained motivated, in part, by the fact he knows he has to improve to be successful when he goes to Central Michigan. He also knows that in this sport, losing his focus for one second could end this run.
“I just know that in order to get to that stage, you need to wrestle each and every match one match at a time,” he said. “You can’t advance to the state Finals without winning Districts. I really just try to stay humble, and I give the glory to God, because I know that’s why I’m doing this.”
But the training isn’t just about holding off hungry competition, it’s about feeding Cushman’s own hunger, the same that burned inside him in 2016.
“Everyone wants to knock the king off the mountain, and this year people have taken the approach, ‘I’ve got nothing to lose, this is a state champion, I’m supposed to lose,’ so they really go after me,” Cushman said. “My coach reminds me every day, ‘You’re chasing something, too. You want to win another title. You want to go to college and win a national title and be an All-American.’
“I never want to be satisfied.”
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) Flushing’s Ben Cushman works against Grand Haven’s Drake Morley during last season’s Division 1 championship match at 215 pounds. (Middle) Cushman locks up with Detroit Catholic Central’s Jackson Ross during a quarterfinal. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)