| Frankenmuth’s Konner Roche took 1st at Districts on Saturday, wrestling in the 171lbs Division. Konner was seeded 3rd going into the tournament and was ranked 6th in the state.
Konner pinned his first opponent, Cody Koval of Almont in 1:24 in the Quarter-Finals. Konner then went on to wrestle #3 ranked David Watson from Yale who took 4th in the state the year before, losing to former Eagle wrestler, Chris Mills, 6-3 in the consolation finals. In the finals, Roche wrestled #4 ranked, A’Marion Gibson from Flint Hamady who took 8th in the state the year before at 171lbs. Konner captured the early second period pin in 2:14. Lucas Miller, Brenden Marker, Logan Geitman, Tanner Clontz and Kaden Miller all either won matches on the day or made it to the blood round match at Districts for an opportunity to proceed on to Regionals. They all wrestled their best, but were unable to proceed on. Lucas Miller pinned his first opponent, Charles Valcore from Yale in 57 seconds. Lucas then went to pin Landyn Thornburg from Montrose in 3:51. Miller lost his next match to the #1 ranked wrestler in the state, Mathew Dwyer from Almont and dropped down to the consolation bracket. Lucas was wrestling well and winning over Mark Adams from Swan Valley before being caught in a difficult season ending pin. Brenden Marker wrestled a former Regional Qualifier, Masen Joppich of Yale and was winning 4-1 at the end of the first period. Masen found Brenden on his back in the final seconds of the match and captured the pin. Brenden dropped down to the consolation bracket against Casen Haggart of Birch Run who he lost to 8-4 earlier in the season. Brenden wrestled well and eventually got some revenge with a 6-4 victory. Marker went on to wrestle another former Regional Qualifier in Hunter Ayotte of Millington. He wrestled well but eventually lost the match to a season ending pinfall. Logan Geitman wrestled well and defeated Sam Shoens of Millington in the first round 9-2. Logan unfortunately suffered an injury and was forced to default out of the tournament. Tanner Clontz entered the tournament as the 5th seed and eventually found himself in the same position he was in just last season. Tanner was one match away to qualify to regionals, but was defeated by David Tebedo by pinfall. Kaden Miller wrestled his first match of the day against Braxton Edwards of Flint Powers. It was a high scoring match, but Kaden eventually came out on top with a 17-14 victory. Kaden went on to lose to the 1st seed and 4th seed in the tournament. Coach’s Comments: “As always, I am very proud of what these guys have been able to accomplish in such a short amount of time. Some things went right for us today and other things could have gone better, but in the end each of these wrestlers did the best they could. Most of our team just started wrestling last year and because of Covid, they had to try and pick something back up they haven’t been around in quite a long time. In spite of facing this adversity, they were able to do some really amazing things this season and have absolutely nothing to hang their heads about. We are a family and still have one of our Eagles in the fight for a State Championship. We are in this together until the end, so even though Konner will be our lone wrestler going to Regionals, you better believe his whole team will be right there behind him until the very end. This team is stronger together and will come back next year yet again, better than ever.” |