Jeff Chaney
Sports Scene
Ask any high school wrestling coach that he would have to replace nine starters off a state runner-up team, and they might say it would take a couple of seasons to reload the roster.
That’s exactly the problem that Lowell wrestling coach Dave Dean faced this year with his red Arrows.
The Red Arrows lost six seniors to graduation, including three that had previously won one or two individual state championships in Gabe and Andrew Morse and Gabe Dean.
The team also had two all state wrestlers transfer out of the district in Nate Limmex and Angus Arthur.
And the final one, was sophomore all state 215-pounder Josh Colegrove, who injured his knee during football and has missed most of this season.
That’s a lot of high quality to replace.
But Lowell has rebounded nicely, posting a 17-6 record during a brutal schedule. And the Red Arrows come into this weekend’s MHSAA Team State finals at Battle Creek’s Kellogg Arena as the second seed in Division 2.
“I felt like we could be at this spot where we are at right now,” Dave Dean said. “We have hard working kids in the program, and I have a lot of confidence in my coaches to develop them. It appears that it is all working out.”
Even though the Red Arrows lost a lot of talent, they have a lot this year, too.
The team consist of freshmen Lucas Hall, Zeth Dean, Dan Kruse and Max Dean, sophomores Jordan Hall and Logan Wilcox, juniors Derek Krajewski, Bailey Jack, Jake Garcia, Kanon Dean and Garett Stehley and seniors Zach Graves, Scott and Cody VanOosten and Taylor Kornoely.
Stehley says it’s a mindset and Lowell that allows the program to stay on top.
Our coaches do a good job or preparing the underclassmen to step in a fill a spot,” Stehley said. “That helps motivate kids, because they know they can get a shot to fill in the spot if somebody leaves. And the fact that we wrestle in big duals and meets like we have, the coaches also do a good job of preparing the young kids mindset, getting them ready for big meets and duals.”
Lowell has a big one Friday night in the quarterfinals, where they and long-time rival Greenville will meet.
The two teams use to be a regular on each other’s schedule, but Greenville moved out of the OK White Conference this year, and the two teams don’t meet in the state tournament anymore.
That is until the finals.
“Greeville is a tough team,” Stehley said. “After they moved out of our conference, I didn’t know we would see them again. It’s a tough first draw, Greenville has some tough kids throughout their lineup. A tough first test.”
But the Red Arrows seemed prepared. They advanced nine wrestlers out of Saturday’s individual regional at Fruitport High School.
“That is good as I thought we would do,” Dave Dean said. “The kids wrestled well. It was a good day.”