Goodrich’s youth will be well-served at the state individual wrestling finals Mar. 9-11 at The Palace of Auburn Hills.
Sophomore Grant Overcashier leads a contingent of three Goodrich wrestlers who qualified for the state meet in Division 3 regional action Feb. 25 at Goodrich. Overcashier captured the 130-lb championship by defeating Vassar’s Frank Knickerbocker 7-3 in the title match, improving his season record to 47-11.
Sophomore Mark Weber (112) also qualified for the state meet, although he bowed out of his 112-lb. final matchup against Chesaning’s Chad Reiber due to injury. Weber heads into the state meet with a 52-2 season record.
Freshman Kyler Elsworth was the other Goodrich wrestler to qualify for the state meet, defeating Caro’s Mitch Burcham 8-6 to win third place in the 152-lb. bracket. Elsworth improved his season record to 44-17.
Overcashier started out the regional tournament strong with an 8-0 win against Montrose’s Trevor Williams, then defeated Croswell-Lexington’s Donnie Corby 7-4 to advance to the 130-lb. finals against Knickerbocker.
Meanwhile, Weber advanced to the 112-lb. finals by pinning Frankenmuth’s Joshua Trantham in 38 seconds and Vassar’s Mike Endert in 3:53.
Elsworth started out the tournament with a decisive technical fall win against Caro’s John Shaft in 4:49. He then lost to Flint Powers? Nick Hendrick by a 7-2 decision, then rebounded to defeat Imlay City’s Jack Baker 2-1, setting up the third-place match against Burcham.
Two other Goodrich wrestlers, freshmen David Garr (103) and Kyle March (171), competed in the regional meet but did not qualify for the state meet. Garr started out the tournament with a 5-3 win against Bridgeport’s Noah Patterson, then lost his next two matches, falling to Imlay City’s Dominic DeYonker 6-4 and Montrose’s Brandon McNiel 9-6.
Garr wrapped up his first season on the Goodrich varsity with a record of 42-14.
March lost an 11-1 major decision to Montrose’s Erik Freeman and a 13-1 major decision to Yale’s Chris Tyranski, finishing the season with a 38-21 record.
As a team, Goodrich’s wrestling season came to an end with a 39-27 loss to Capac in a Division 3 regional team wrestling meet Friday, Feb. 24 at Durand. The Martians finished their season with a team record of 23-11.
The Martians earned seven victories in the matchup against Capac:
‘C.C. Weber (103) defeated Eric Bollaert 12-6.
‘Garr (112) pinned Andrew Bollaert in 45 seconds.
‘Mark Weber (119) pinned Mike Bainbridge in 1:05.
‘Kirk Britton (125) defeated James Hanson 6-0.
‘Overcashier (130) pinned Jake Nemecek in 47 seconds.
‘March (171) defeated Brian Sass 7-0.
‘Jeremy Gauthier (189) defeated Chris Sass 11-3.