Jonesville senior Blake Ryan secured the 113-pound Cascades wrestling title. Two more Comets medaled at the conference finale ahead of district week.
LESLIE — The Jonesville varsity wrestling team traveled to Leslie for the Cascades Conference championship tournament, and the Comets walked away with a senior winning a league title.
Blake Ryan, now 30-8 overall, earned the 113-pound conference title after a pinfall win in his first match and a 16-8 victory over Trevor Ohm of Addison in the championship bout.
“Going into this tournament, I was going to have a good chance to go all the way, but you can never discredit your opponents,” Ryan said. “I had to work my butt off. That Addison kid, Trevor — he worked his butt off, too. Tons of respect for him.”
Ryan completed his journey to a conference title behind hard work, helping lead a young Comets team through the first step of its postseason schedule.
“I believed in the kid from day one,” coach Nick Ballinger said. “He shows up, he puts the work in, and for that hard work to be rewarded is a really good feeling. We’ve done pretty good. Like I said, we’re mostly freshmen and sophomores. To come out here and compete the way we did, we’re pretty happy with it.”
Ryan was joined by freshman Briggs Baker, who reached the 120-pound championship match after an 18-5 decision win. He finished second in his weight class.
Sophomore Max Young (157) took third place after winning his final two matches, including an 8-6 decision in the consolation semifinals.
Also earning wins for the Comets was Blayke Nichols at 132, who recorded a pin against Tristan Taylor of Napoleon. Carter McColley (138) won a 13-8 decision in the consolation rounds. At 144, Hunter Luke earned a 10-0 major decision. At 165, George Managadze earned a pinfall in the opening round.
With the conference tournament in the books, the Jonesville varsity wrestling team now turns toward team districts, which will be held at Reading on Wednesday, Feb. 11.
“We need to keep our energy up,” Ryan said. “When we get down on ourselves, we don’t wrestle as good. But if we have our team behind our back, all these kids helping one another, then I think we have a chance to at least go to regionals.”
Jonesville will then head to individual districts at Union City on Saturday, Feb. 14. For seniors like Ryan, it will mark the start of a postseason run he hopes will take him past where he has finished in previous years.
“These last two years I’ve been a blood-round regional exit, so it’d be a dream for me just to be able to go to that big-stage state meet,” Ryan said. “For the rest of these kids, I’d love it if I could bring them all to the regionals with me, and we could send a couple more with me to states.”
This article originally appeared on Hillsdale Daily News: Jonesville senior Blake Ryan wins conference title as Cascades finale
Category: General Sports
