Whitehall Pair Making Memorable Marks
March 2, 2016
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
Reiley Brown has three brothers of his own.
But the returning MHSAA champion wrestler at Whitehall High School said it might be more accurate for this article to include his fellow senior teammate Jwan Britton as a fourth sibling.
“We are the closest thing to brothers,” said Brown of his good friend and daily training partner – referring both to their time together on the Whitehall High mats and also the makeshift mat which Brown has set up in the pole barn behind his house.
“We really go at it and push each other to get better every day. I owe a lot of my success to him.”
Brown, 47-1, is seeking a second straight Division 3 individual championship, this time at 135 pounds, at this weekend’s MHSAA Individual Finals at The Palace of Auburn Hills.
The only thing that would make such a repeat sweeter is if Britton, who is 47-2 and a Regional champion at 140 pounds, could follow right behind him with a Finals championship of his own.
“At this point, it’s really hard to mention Reiley and his accomplishments without talking about Jwan,” said Whitehall coach Cliff Sandee, who is in his 10th year and has guided the Vikings to the Team Semifinals three of the past six.
Rare back-to-back championships for teammates would be a fitting end for Brown and Britton, who have been the backbone of a tremendous four-year run for the Whitehall wrestling program.
As a team, the Vikings achieved all of their goals this winter, including their 10th consecutive Greater Muskegon Athletic Association City Wrestling title. Whitehall, which finished 26-2 in duals, won its fourth straight West Michigan Conference and District titles, and then added a Regional championship.
The culmination of this season’s work led last weekend to Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, which hosted the MHSAA Team Wrestling Finals and also happens to be the school where Brown will wrestle next year when he becomes the first Whitehall wrestler to go on to a Division I college program.
It was almost “one and done” at CMU, as things looked mighty bleak against Richmond in Friday’s Quarterfinal match.
Richmond built a seemingly insurmountable 29-9 lead before the Vikings came roaring back to score the final 28 points, winning the final six bouts for an emotional 37-29 win. Whitehall’s victory was significant as Richmond and Dundee have dominated Division 3 team wrestling over the past decade, combining to win eight of the past 10 Team Finals titles.
“That was a huge win for us on a state level, because Richmond is such a great program,” said Sandee. “We want to be at team state every year; that’s the kind of program we want. I have six seniors this year, but we also have our most talented middle school group coming in, so we’re excited.”
Fittingly, unheralded junior Dominick Haynes started the comeback, pinning state-ranked Graham Barton at 130 pounds. That stunning six points led right into the strength of the Vikings’ lineup, with a pin from Brown and a major decision for Britton.
The Vikings dug another big hole in Saturday morning’s Semifinal. But a second miracle comeback was not in the cards against powerful Dundee, which raced out front 27-3 and held on for a 39-18 victory. Dundee then dispatched Remus Chippewa Hills 40-16 in the Final for its ninth team wrestling title and third in the past four years.
However, buddies Brown and Britton certainly got the attention of the Dundee faithful and many other wrestling gurus with big wins near the end of that dual. Brown rallied for a last-minute, 3-2 win over Tylor Orrison at 135, and then Britton used a takedown in the waning seconds to beat Zach Blevins, 4-3, in what could end up a preview of this weekend’s individual title match at 140 pounds.
Whitehall has two other Regional champions in JoJo Dowdell (145) and Hunter Bower (103).
Brown is the best known of the Vikings on the state level, taking second at 103 in his freshman year and third at 119 as a sophomore before breaking through for the 125-pound Division 3 championship as a junior. He comes into this weekend with the pressure of great expectations to go with a 181-12 career record.
“I try to use that pressure as a positive and feed off of it, to prove myself,” said Brown, who plans to study human resources at CMU. “I actually felt way more pressure going into team state, because my match there affects a lot more than just me.”
Besides, he has always felt right at home on a wrestling mat.
While many kids have basketball hoops in their driveways, how many can say they have their very own wrestling mat – along with an exercise bike and a heater – in a pole barn out back?
“My dad set it up out there when I was going into high school,” said Brown. “I’ve had some great battles out there with Jwan and my brothers over the years. Hopefully that extra work I’ve put in at home will pay off this weekend.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Whitehall's Reiley Brown works to gain control in his match Saturday against Dundee's Tylor Orrison. (Middle) Jwan Britton (right) lines up to start his match against Zach Blevins during the Division 3 Team Semifinal. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Hastings Among Statewide Pacesetters as Girls Wrestling Enjoys Rapid Growth
By
Steve Vedder
Special for MHSAA.com
January 12, 2024
Sophia Sunior thought the mat might be the perfect place to learn something new about herself.
So after hanging around a handful of Hastings boys wrestling practices a year ago, the Saxons senior opted to join the school's fledging girls team. As a former swimmer and current softball player, Sunior considered herself competitive. But the real attraction to wrestling, said Sunior, was to test her own mental and physical boundaries.
At first, Sunior struggled with the decision as she met with little success against more experienced wrestlers. But little by little, Sunior began to improve. And that's when she began to discover critical pieces about herself.
"For me, a lot of it was mental," Sunior said. "But I became stronger mentally and physically. Wrestling is probably one of hardest sports there is. It's almost legalized fighting, and I've learned so much about myself. My motto is if I can wrestle, I can do anything. You can learn some of the best (teaching) tools about yourself you can get."
While Sunior started last season slowly, she finished with a bang, placing eighth at MHSAA Individual Finals at 190 pounds. She's started this season with seven wins over her first eight matches.
Sunior is part of what Hastings coach Mike Goggins believes is the largest girls wrestling team in the state with 16 athletes. Goggins, who coached the Hastings boys team for 38 years, switched over to the girls program two years ago. Hastings had five Finals qualifiers and three placers last season.
Goggins isn't necessarily surprised that girls wrestling has caught on at Hastings, which has long had a quality boys program with Goggins' teams winning 11 league championships, 10 Districts and one Regional title and totaling 28 Individual Finals placers under his guidance.
The ability to build a program has carried over to the girls. The team had 14 wrestlers a year ago, and this season’s competitors have come from a variety of backgrounds. Of the 16 total, seven are first-year wrestlers. Three are first-year varsity letter winners, while two play basketball, two tennis, two softball, and one is a volleyball player.
“It's really kind of taken off," Goggins said of the sport. "A lot of the girls had shown interest in boys wrestling, and then when we offered wrestling for the girls, we began to get numbers. I'm not terribly surprised by that. Just the experience of what the girls saw with the boys, I just think they wanted an opportunity."
MHSAA participation surveys show 100-150 girls regularly participating in wrestling during the end of the first decade of the 2000s, but numbers began growing substantially to match the introduction of a state individual tournament by the Michigan Wrestling Association (the state coaches association) during the 2018-19 season and then the addition of a girls-only division to the MHSAA Individual Finals in 2022. Goggins said the vast majority of girls would much rather compete against girls. “I'd say 10 to 12 of our wrestlers will say no thanks to wrestling against boys, and that's absolutely fine,” he said.
MHSAA assistant director Dan Hutcheson noted girls wrestling has nearly tripled from 495 athletes who completed an Alpha weigh-in in 2019-20 to 1,332 this winter.
"The goal is we hope it keeps growing to where schools have complete lineups," Hutcheson said. "Wrestling is a sport you can do on your own and if you put in the work, you can be successful.
"We don't know how or to what point it grows, but it's been at a nice clip."
Goggins said the sport's next hurdle indeed will be fielding enough teams for dual meets. Hastings has gone to three tournaments, which included plenty of travel to East Jackson, Grayling and Montague. The Montague event had 52 competitors, but weekend tournaments can be a numbers struggle as most teams are never able to field a complete lineup. That leaves organizers with the challenge of organizing brackets to fit the participants.
When there are enough girls for more teams to fill the standard 14 weight classes, the sport will likely grow even more, Goggins contends.
One of his first decisions as girls coach was to hire a female assistant in his daughter, Erin Slaughter, also the school's volleyball coach. Goggins, the school's athletic director, said the move means girls don't have to turn to a male coach for advice. "It's added a certain comfort level," he said.
While Sunior is one of the most experienced wrestlers, first-year senior Skylar Fenstemaker said she has her own reasons for joining the program.
"It's a challenge," she said. "Just the physical commitment and how hard (you) have to work. And I wrestle because I like being part of a team and the bond you have with the other girls. You learn that you have to work hard to get what you want."
PHOTOS (Top) The Hastings girls wrestling team celebrates its team championship at the Grayling Invitational this season. (Middle) First-year wrestler Skylar Fenstemaker, left, and returning Finals placer Sophia Sunior are two of 16 athletes on the team. (Photos courtesy of the Hastings girls wrestling program.)