WHITEHALL — Despite a game effort by another batch of snow Wednesday night, Whitehall’s twice-rescheduled dual match against Benzie Central did go off as planned, and the Vikings rode some impressive pins and several forfeits to a 65-12 victory.
The match was originally supposed to be the season-opening Assembly Dual in December, but it was twice wiped out by snow. The Vikings were able to reschedule a planned West Michigan Conference quad meet for Thursday to accommodate Benzie Central, though since it occurred at 5 p.m., the match did not take place in front of a packed crowd of students as originally hoped.
“They wanted to wrestle us in the Assembly Dual,” Whitehall coach Justin Zeerip said. “I just wanted to wrestle them. They have a good program. They obviously had some holes (in their lineup) tonight, but they made it to the (Division 4) team semifinals last year, so I thought they’d be a good quality opponent. It’s good to see some kids from other areas of the state.”
Whitehall bounced back well after a stunning opening loss in the dual. At 106 pounds, Viking freshman Tommy Leeke led 14-0, a juncture which is almost always followed by the final point being scored to earn a technical fall. However, Benzie Central foe David Wenkel turned the tables on Leeke and stunningly pinned him.
Zeerip said Leeke just got caught in a bad position and said it was something the young wrestler will be able to learn from.
“I know he’ll learn from it and it’s going to help him in the long run,” Zeerip said. “It’s just a tough lesson in the short term.”
From there, though, the Vikings dominated. First came a pair of forfeit wins, then a couple of close decision wins by Cody Manzo and Max Krukowski. The Vikings earned another forfeit, then Caden Varela and Colton Kyser earned consecutive pins.
Kyser, at 150, has joined the wrestling team after previously playing basketball, and Zeerip has been impressed with him despite his lack of experience.
Whitehall took a second loss at 165, but rolled in the rest of the dual, with Parker Mott scoring a dominant technical fall and Gavin Craner and Wyatt Jenkins earning their usual pins. Mott, who is coming off a broken leg during football season and hadn’t wrestled since his freshman year, has been another good addition to the room, Zeerip said, and Craner and Jenkins give the coaches an enviable pair at the top of the lineup.
“It gives you a lot of flexibility and allows you to get matchups that can help you win the dual,” Zeerip said of Craner and Jenkins. “Having those two guys up there helps a lot just because those two guys are really, really good and they’re ranked really high in the state.”
Once the varsity match was complete, since it took less than 90 minutes, the two teams agreed to wrestle several B team matches to get more athletes some work. Zeerip said he was pleased in particular with a victory by Robert Belinger in one of those matches.
The Vikes had a couple of early stumbles that sent them back several spots in the MichiganGrappler team rankings, but Zeerip is unconcerned with those. In any case, Whitehall, ranked No. 7 at the time, earned a big-time win over No. 6 Lakewood at Grandville in December to flip spots with them in the most recent rankings.
“The big thing is where you get seeded at the team state tournament,” Zeerip said. “We try to challenge our guys with a tough schedule so we can get a seed that would help us and benefit us...We still have a little bit of season left here where we can keep moving up.”
