The Reeths-Puffer wrestling team had a big mountain to climb to claim at least a share of its fourth straight O-K Green conference championship.
The Rockets opened their conference season with a disappointing loss to Byron Center, then spent the rest of the dual meet season in second place, looking up at the first-place Bulldogs in the standings.
They knew the only way to gain a share of the conference title was to take first place in the season-ending O-K Green conference tournament on Friday at Byron Center High School.
So that’s exactly what the Rockets did, in very impressive fashion.
They won the tournament with 194.5 points, easily outdistancing second-place Byron Center, which totaled 161. Muskegon finished third with 138 points, followed by Caledonia (114.5), Mona Shores (101) and Jenison (94).
O-K Green champion Landon Learn
R-P and Byron Center ended up sharing the O-K Green title, and considering how the season started out, the Rockets are happy with it.
“The kids felt motivated to get the job done, and they definitely stepped up,” said R-P head coach Brad Cowles. “It was just the build-up to it. They knew it was our only chance, and they responded.”
The really impressive part is that the Rockets won the tournament so easily with only three champions in the 14 weight classes.
They made up for that by wrestling great as a team across the board and piling up points in just about every weight class.
R-P had seven wrestlers reach the championship round in their respective brackets, and had 13 place in the top four of their weight classes.
O-K Green champion Travis Henderson
“The whole team did their part, 100 percent,” Cowles said.
Having the whole team on hand was a big key to the Rockets’ success on Friday. They have been plagued by injuries and illness all season, and competed many times with starters missing from the lineup.
But everyone was healthy and battling hard on Friday, and it made a real difference.
“They were scoring early, scoring a lot and were very aggressive,” Cowles said. “We scored a lot of bonus points and had a lot of pins in the first round. I didn’t expect us to win by such a blowout, but it was definitely nice to win that way.”
R-P’s three individual conference champions were Landon Learn at 113 pounds, who pinned Muskegon’s Albin Bourdon in the finals; Travis Henderson (120), who beat Jenison’s Brock Prince 15-0 in the finals; and Braxton VanHohenstein (106), who pinned Byron Center’s Lucas Arther in the finals.
O-K Green champion Braxton VanHohenstein
VanHohenstein trailed badly after one period before rallying and getting his pin.
Finishing second in their weight classes for R-P were Hunter Eek (144 pounds), Jake Rozycki (150) Tanner Cowles (157) and Aiden Neal (165).
Taking third were Cory Judd (126), Andrew Corradin (175), Clay Rozycki (132) and Troy Swingley (285.
Fourth-place finishers were Lyric Stewart (190) and Devin Welch (215).