By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Sports Writer
Independence Township — The Wolves finished the weekend with one loss and three wins against top teams in their Clarkston Duals event on Saturday.
“It was awesome,” said Clarkston Varsity Wrestling Head Coach Brian Gibbs. “We set our goals at the beginning of the year – winning Oakland County was one. Our Clarkston Duals was kind of number two as far as we wanted to see these teams because they were some of the top teams. I thought we did awesome. Everyone came to wrestle. Top to bottom, we wrestled really tough. We ended up knocking off No. 5 and No. 6 teams in Division 1 and that was our goal. It’s nice to achieve that.”
The Wolves lost in the finals to Hudson, ranked first in Division 4, 42-27.
“Coach (Scott) Marry always puts together a really good team at Hudson,” Gibbs said, adding they have 14 ranked wrestlers with at least half in the top five and they have been in the state finals 12 of the last 13 years with eight championship wins.
“We knew it was going to be tough, but we were in the position to win the dual. It ended up not happening,” Gibbs said.
Camden Neumann (285) and Cayden Strong (144) won their matches with pins on their opponents. Neumann had a fall over Aidan Raszkowski, 2:47; and Strong had his fall over Austin Marry, 3:39.
Brady Vogt (126) went 4-2 against Tucker Miller; Auggie Anderson (138) went 5-1 against Kannon Marry; and Anthony Cach (215) went 3-1 over Kenny Sledge. Archer Anderson (120) won his match by injury.
The Wolves won their pool against Lake Fenton, 49-30.
“They are always tough,” Gibbs said. “They have a good coach, Coach (Vance) Corcoran. He always has his guys ready to go, ready to brawl. They are going to throw the kitchen sink at you. We had to be ready for that and we knew it. We were caught in a couple of tough spots, but ended up coming out on top. We handled the dual pretty well.”
Preston Lefevre opened the scoring in the 113-pound weight class for Clarkston with a pin on Wyatt DeVasher, 2:49.
The Wolves had five more falls by Vogt over Robby Moore, 2:57; Nathaniel Carter (132) over Jaxon Penrod, 28 seconds; Auggie Anderson over Drew Corcoran, 1:24; Ethan Lefevre (157) over Michael Schultz, 4:46; and Neumann over Gabe Parker, 39 seconds.
Archer Anderson (120) won his match against Clay Cook by a major decision, 15-2 and Brock Trevino (190) won by void.
The Wolves defeated Romeo in their second match of the day, 39-31.
Tyler Le (106) opened the match with the first win with a fall over Sean Williams within seconds.
The Wolves had four more falls with Preston Lefevre over Bryce Holt, 5:32; Archer Anderson over Owen Perry, 2:18; Carter over Anthony Yuquilima, 34 seconds; and Auggie Anderson over Jake Turley, 4:57.
The Wolves had three more wins with Vogt over Owen Youngblood, 5-1; Strong over Alex Angelo, 4-3; and Trevino (175) over Tyler Pressel, 10-4.
Clarkston opened the day against Bedford, both finishing with 37 points. Clarkston won on the tenth criteria of most near fall points.
The Wolves had four wins by falls starting with Preston Lefevre over Tristan King, 1:08; Archer Anderson over Nolan King, 1:45; Strong over Lucas Gerber, 3:35; and Ethan Lefevre (150) over Jacob Bruning, 3:01.
Auggie Anderson won by major decision over Noah Benore, 14-2.
Vogt won his match over Nathan Gerber, 14-7; and Carter won by void.
Gibbs added Strong and Vogt had a good day.
“All four kids Cayden wrestled were ranked inside the top ten. He came away undefeated and really looked solid,” he said. “Brady from the beginning of the year is showing a ton of improvements. Now that he is a senior he is a steady part in our line up we can count on day in and day out. He had one that stood out really well – he had a win over Romeo who was fourth in the state last year. He handled the match. I am definitely excited to see what he is going to do in the post season.”
Three Wolves finished in the top four in the Fowlerville Gladiatrix on Friday. Paisley DeNault finished as champion in the 130-pound weight class.
“She had three pins in the first period,” Gibbs said. “I think she was on the mat up to three minutes. She’s a stud. I am excited to see what she is going to do in the post season.”
Molly Labate (115) and Lily Francy (105) finished in fourth place in a 16-person bracket.
“Lily, a returning state qualifier, has gotten a lot tougher this year. I am happy with how she is doing,” said Gibbs. “It’s Molly’s first year for wrestling. She’s an athlete and very driven. She takes to the sport very well. It’s good to see them perform.”
The Wolves posted two wins in the OAA Red, Jan. 11, going 58-21 against Rochester and 50-24 against Rochester Adams.
“Not to overlook our OAA competition, but we were really focusing on the weekend so we trained pretty hard throughout the week,” Gibbs said. “There were some things we needed to focus on Wednesday. I thought getting out and scoring the first points it’s really correlated to the outcome of the match. For the person who scores first in the match, they are going 95 percent of the time will win the dual. Our focus was getting out there and scoring early. Everybody as a whole did that very well. They came out ready to go and went after it right away. I am definitely happy with that.”
The Wolves are 4-0 in the OAA Red as they go into their last league duals this Wednesday against Oxford and Bloomfield Hills.
The Blackhawks finished last year as district champions and won the OAA Blue. They moved up to the OAA Red this season.
“They are doing a good job competing against those teams in the OAA Red,” Gibbs said. “Oxford graduated some kids last year who were pretty tough. We really didn’t know what to expect from them this year but they have some freshman and sophomores that really stepped up and rounded off their team pretty nice. They have Koen Eberhard, a senior, who’s leading their team this year. They have a few underclassmen, like Luke Johnson and Gavin Lewis, who are stepping up for them. It will definitely be a good dual. My thoughts this year are the top two teams in the OAA Red are us and Oxford.
The Wolves will also celebrate six wrestlers during Senior Night – Francy, Strong, Vogt, Auggie Anderson, Ethan Lefevre and Andrew Mazo.

  Clarkston Varsity Wrestling, Wrestling