After three months of workouts and weekend invitationals, it comes down to a final showdown for the Brighton and Hartland wrestling teams today.
The Bulldogs and Eagles, who wrestled for the state championship in 2015, which Brighton won, meet again in the Division 1 quarterfinals at Wings Stadium in Kalamazoo at 2:15 p.m.
Brighton coach Tony Greathouse thinks the teams’ familiarity with each other is a double-edged sword.
“It helps and I think it can hurt you, too,” he said. “We’re familiar with them but they’re familiar with us. I tell people it’s hard to beat a good guy twice. It’s harder to beat him three times or four times. We have to beat a good team twice, which is hard, but a lot of our guys are having to wrestle someone who they’ve now wrestled a couple of times. We wrestled them at the conference tournament and the dual meet. So I think the gap can sometimes close.”
The Bulldogs, seeded No. 2, are looking to win their second state title in four seasons. Only one wrestler, 160-pointer Jack Ireton, was on the team that beat Hartland for the title that year.
“it’s an entirely new group,” Greathouse said.
The Bulldogs didn’t make it to the finals the next year, which Hartland won, and Greathouse said last year, with so many new wrestlers, was like going for the first time.
“Last year, we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,” he said.
That hasn’t been a problem for Hartland in a generation. The Eagles have gone to the finals 17 years in a row and 19 of the last 23 seasons under coach Todd Cheney.
“We’re a little spoiled,” he said. “We know it’s our goal to get to the state meet. Now we have to make (a title) happen.”
Cheney sees the match as being close.
“Winning the swing matches is key,” he said. If we do, we’ll do well. If we don’t we’re in trouble. Up and down the whole dual meet, each match will be good. We had 14 regional qualifiers, they had 13. We’ll be ready to roll.”
At this point, the hay’s in the barn, as the saying goes. Both teams will used the experience they’ve gained, plus a little guile, to get their teams where they want to go.
“I think the key is to have everyone do their job,” Hartland’s River Shettler said. “Have fun. It’s all you can really do.”
Brighton’s Nick Bleise had a different view.
“Just stay levelheaded and not let the hype get to our heads,” he said. “You have to get mentally ready and focused, but at the same time, it’s just another dual. No need to add more hype to it.”
The quarterfinal was seeded, with Brighton getting a No. 2 seed and Hartland at No. 7. If Hartland wins, it will almost certainly face No. 1 Detroit Catholic Central in the semifinals at 9:30 a.m.
Should Brighton win, it wouldn’t face the Shamrocks until Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. championship match. It would, instead, face the second-lowest seed that advances on Friday.
