MUSKEGON TOWNSHIP – The Reeths-Puffer wrestling team is starting to pile up the trophies as the season heads into the final stretch.
On Saturday the Rockets won the O-K Green conference tournament and secured the overall conference championship in the process.
They kept that momentum going in a big way on Wednesday, winning two matches at home to claim a Division 1 team district championship.
The Rockets beat Traverse City West 60-12 in the semifinal round, then downed Traverse City Central 57-24 in the championship match.
Both the conference and district titles are firsts for second-year head coach Jared Fleming.
Happy R-P wrestlers celebrate with teammate Kaden Malotke (center). Photo/Tonya Pardon
“I’m super pumped,” said Fleming, whose team will host next Wednesday’s team regional tournament, starting with R-P's semifinal matchup against Hudsonville at 5 p.m. “I’m obviously happy. You can’t take any of these for granted. These things are not easy to get, so it’s nice to have a trophy shaped like Michigan.”
Fleming said it was extra fun winning the district title at R-P and can’t wait for his team to compete at home again next week in regionals.
“It’s great to have it here,” the coach said. “The crowd was awesome tonight, and it will be even better next week.”
While the Rockets won the championship match by a wide margin, it was touch-and-go for a bit.
Reeths-Puffer trailed 6-0 after one match before Jake Rozycki (120 pounds) picked up a pin at the 1:49 mark of the first period to tie the score at 6-6.
Kaden Malotke battles his TC Central opponent in the 138-pound match. Photo/Tonya Pardon
Corey Judd gave Reeths-Puffer a 9-6 lead with a 6-5 victory in the 125-pound bout.
The lead stretched to 21-6 after R-P collected pin victories from Ian Cook (132) and Kaden Malotke (138).
But Traverse City Central got back into the mix with back-to-back pins, picked up 12 points and cut the R-P lead to 21-18.
That’s when Caden Huddleston stepped up and got a quick pin just 1:41 into the 157-pound match, kick-starting the Rockets again and making the score 27-18.
“I’m pretty excited,” Huddleston said about changing the momentum of the match with his victory. “It was pretty fun. It felt great to know that I may have helped flip things for the team.”
Following Huddleston’s win, the Rockets collected three straight pin victories from Sage Secrest (165), Omillion Wyrick (175) and Caleb Zimmerman (190) to take a commanding 45-18 lead.
R-P's Sage Secrest (left) gets ready to take down his opponent. Photo/Tonya Pardon
Traverse City Central won a match by default to make the score 45-24 before R-P’s Nathan Stafford (285) and Max Knowlton (106) ended the night with two more pins.
“They came out and did what we thought they could do,” Fleming said about his wrestlers. “We thought we matched up well against both teams and we wrestled really well. Our guys stepped up to the plate and took care of business. The bonus point victories have really helped us down the stretch.”
Perhaps the most impressive effort came from Huddleston, who won both of his matches via pin while spending just 2:04 on the mat.
“After the first one I felt lucky,” said the senior, who is now 31-19 on the season. “I knew I had to keep it going. My season has been kind of pin or be pinned, so it was pretty exciting and I’m kind of feeling a little cocky, which I shouldn’t be.”
