THE HASTINGS
Thursday, February 29, 2024Vikes first in tourney to score against Dundee
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
Owen Prowdley left his mark on the now
seven-time defending state champs’ 2024
tournament.
The Lakewood sophomore, Prowdley,
fought off his back in the first period against
Dundee’s Cooper Buhl, evened the score of
their 175-pound bout at 4-4 with a take down
and two near-fall points of his own in the
second period, and he eventually took Buhl
down and got him on his back again in the
third period.
The official slapped the mat 34 seconds
into the third period of their 175-pound bout
in the MHSAA Division 3 Team State Quar-
terfinal at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo
Friday afternoon. The six points Prowdley
earned for his pin were the first points the
Dundee Vikings gave up in their entire 2024
state tournament run.
And Prowdley wasn’t the last Lakewood
Viking to stick a Dundee Viking on his back.
Carter Stewart made it back-to-back pins for
the Vikings by sticking Dundee’s Quinten
Lephew 2:34 into their 190-pound match.
Viking returning state medalist Joel Simon
also scored a pin, ending his 285-pound
match with Landon King 47 seconds into the
second period.
Those three pins accounted for all of Lake-
wood’s points in a 58-18 defeat.
“We came in knowing, it is what it is, but
each match we just wanted to go and battle,”
Lakewood head coach Tony Harmer said.
“We’re a young team, so we could kind of
test ourselves to see where we are versus
where we need to be, and I think we found
that today.”
He said it was a last minute decision to get
Prowdley into the line-up Friday to get a few
other guys down a weight class.
The Dundee Vikings mede it seven consec-
utive MHSAA Division 3 Team State Cham-
pionships with a 49-22 win over Constantine
in the state semifinals and a 49-20 win over
Whitehall in the state final back in Kalama-
zoo Saturday. Dundee has won ten of the last
12 state titles in D3. Those Dundee Vikings
outscored their first four opponents in the
state tournament by a combined score of 321
to 0 in winning district and regional titles. A
79-0 win had been their closest dual of the
state tournament before Friday’s meetingwith Lakewood. It took Dundee ten flights to
clinch the win against Lakewood.
Dundee had a dozen wrestlers at its
MHSAA Division 3 Individual Regional
hosted by Hazel Park last Saturday. All 12
reached the championship finals – qualifying
for state finals at Ford Field this weekend. Of
that dozen, seven won regional titles.
Only seven of those 12 state qualifiers took
the mat against Lakewood. Those seven com-
bined for four technical falls and three pins
earning a total of 38 points.
The Lakewood Vikings are no slouches
themselves. Viking head coach Tony Harm-
er thought it would have been justified for
his team to be seeded higher than eighth at
the start of the state finals. Simon is one of
five Lakewood state qualifiers. He’ll be
joined in Detroit this weekend by Jonathan
Krebs, Bryson Boucher, Kade Boucher and
Vincent Stamm.
Lakewood did what it could. The Lake-
wood Vikings took their lumps and hustled
back to the bench to cheer on their team-
mates.
Harmer was pretty pleased with Carter’s
pin and the way that Stamm closed out the
dual with a 9-0 loss to Dundee’s Bryan Ster-
ling in the 120-pound match.
For the most part, the Dundee wrestlers
showed the Lakewood guys a step up in phys-
icality on the mat with take downs and strong
swift cross faces and arm chops.
Dundee swept the first half of the dual.
Wyatt Burns opened wrestling with an 18-
technical fall over the Vikings’ Kade Bouch-
er. It was the first of four technical falls on
the evening for Dundee. Avery Lane out-
scored Lakewood’s Mason Livermore 11-
at 132 pounds.
Cameron Chinavare earned the Dundee
team’s first pin, sticking Bryson Boucher
3:33 into their 138-pound bout. Dundee also
had Trey Parker pin Lakewood Vincent Risk
1:15 into their 157-pound match.
Dundee got a 17-2 technical fall from
Blake Cosby over Lydon Rogers at 144
pounds and an 18-3 technical fall from Donny
Beaufait over Chris Webb at 150. Kole Kat-
schor added a 20-5 technical fall over Lake-
wood’s Calder Villanueva at 16 5 pounds, a
bout that had Villanueva coming over to
shake the Dundee coaches’ hands shaking his
head and shrugging his shoulders as if to say,
he’s that good there is nothing I could do.
The Lakewood team picked up its points inthe heavier weights, except for at 215 where
Dundee’s Aiden Massingill caught Lakewood
Bryan Aguilera and pinned him with 13 sec-
onds left in the second period.
Dundee also had Benjamin Motylinski pin
Lakewood’s Kyler Witham 24 seconds into
the 106-pound match. Lakewood forfeited the
113-pound bout to Dundee’s Mason Haines.
It was Witham’s first competition of the
state tournament. The Vikings forfeited his
weight class because they didn’t need the
points in the win over Portland in districts
and Adrian Oaks handled the 106-pound
matches at regionals.
Witham dug his fingers in the mat trying to
work his way out from Motylinski before
getting turned, and came off the mat with a
smile in the end getting a high five and a slap
on the back from Simon before settling in on
the sideline.“He is 24-7 happy. He loses his match,
comes off, sits down and is cheering the next
guy on,” Harmer said of Witham, who closes
his first wrestling season with a 4-25 record.
“I think kids respect that. They have kind of
wrapped their arms around him ... That’s
what I told a couple of my classes. Did you
ever think Kyler Witham was going to wres-
tle state finals for us? Out of everybody we
have in the school, here is a kid that stuck
with us the whole entire year. He took his
lumps, took his losses, and now he gets this.”
With a young Lakewood squad, there is
hope among the Vikings that they’ll get anoth-
er shot at the finals again next season. Carter
and Webb were the lone Lakewood seniors in
the line-up Friday – although in a tighter dual
Harmer likely would have deployed fellow
senior Jonathan Krebs who still has wrestling
ahead of him at Ford Field this weekend.Down 24 at half, Saxons rally for win
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
It was a fitting way for the Saxons to final-
ly tie it up.
Saxon senior Charlie Nickels leapt up and
swatted a Hopkins inbounds pass out of the
hands of the leaping Viking Merek Zapolnik
at the top of the key, chased down the loose
ball at center-court and dropped in a lay-up in
front of the Hastings’ student section.
Nickels’ lay-up as the clock ticked towards
half a minute to play in the third quarter
erased the final points of what had been a
33-9 halftime lead for the Hopkins varsity
boys’ basketball team in the MHSAA Divi-
sion 2 District opener at Hastings High School
Monday – tying the ballgame at 40-40.
The momentum never left the Saxons’ side
as they went on to a 64-57 victory and a spot
in the MHSAA Division 2 District Semifinals
back at Hastings High School Wednesday.
The 9-13 Hastings team will face 13-9 Hol-
land Christian at 7 p.m. in the second of twodistrict semifinal ballgames. Wayland and
Hamilton meet in the evening’s opener tip-
ping off at 5:30 p.m.
“I think as a team and a community we
came together,” Nickels said. “Once that
momentum changed, the whole gym changed.
It is not just a team thing. If the gym is quiet,
then we’re quiet. It is all thanks to the stu-
dent-section and everyone else in the stands,
our bench, our coach and everyone out on the
floor we just gave it our all.”
Hastings seemingly tipped every other
Viking pass, got its hands on every loose
ball, and while first half shooting woes con-
tinued a bit in the second half Monday they
weren’t nearly as bad; and the Saxons
chased down more than their fair share of
offensive rebounds in the second half.
Hastings outscored Hopkins 31-7 in a third
quarter, a rally that started with full-court
pressure defense and an intensity that the
Vikings were unable to solve.
“We just knew, as seniors, [Owen] Carrollgathered us together and said, the six of us this
is our last game here if we lose. As a team we
came together like we always do and we
pulled it out. We knew we could. Coach total-
ly said, ‘I have seen bigger things happen. I
have seen crazier things happen.’ We came out
and we showed them what we’re all about.”
There wasn’t much to say inside the halftime
locker room. Saxon head coach Jess Webb sent
his guys back out to the floor with six and a half
minutes to go before the start of the second
half. Three minutes is typical. He realized later
his guys huddled up together before starting
their halftime shoot-around, and was proud of
his guys’ leadership in that moment.
It took every guy in a white and gold Saxon
jersey to get the job done, but Nickels was
certainly a big spark coming off the bench. He
was only on the court for about seven sec-
onds, a minute into the third quarter, when heLakewood junior state medalist Joel Simon (right) greets freshman 106-pounder
Kyler Witham as he comes off the elevated mat at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo
Friday after a loss in the MHSAA Division 3 State Quarterfinals against Dundee.
Dundee defeated Lakewood 58-18 and went on to win its seventh straight MHSAA D
State Championship Saturday with wins over Constantine and Whitehall. (Photo by
Brett Bremer)Lakewood 144-pounder Lydon Rogers fights to stay on his belly during his match
with Dundee's Blake Cosby in the MHSAA Division 3 State Quarterfinal at Wings
Event Center in Kalamazoo Friday. Dundee took a 58-18 win over Lakewood and went
on to capture its seventh consecutive D3 State Championship Saturday. (Photo by
Brett Bremer)
Senior forward Landon Steward and the rest of the Hastings varsity boys' basketball
team celebrates with classmates on the way to the locker room following their district
opening victory over Hopkins at Hastings High School Monday. The Saxons trailed the
Vikings 33-9 at the half and rallied for a 64-57 victory. (Photo by Brett Bremer)Hastings senior guard Charlie Nickels
races in for a lay-up ahead of Hopkins'
Merek Zapolnik, tying their MHSAA
Division 2 District opener at 40-40 during
the third quarter Monday at Hastings
High School. The Saxons trailed the ball-
game 33-9 at the half, but went on to a
64-57 victory. (Photo by Brett Bremer)Hastings senior guard Owen Carroll attacks the basket during the first half of his
team's win over Hopkins in the MHSAA Division 2 District opener at Hastings High
School Monday. Carroll had a game-high 32 points scoring 29 of them in the second
half of the Saxons' come-from-behind win. (Photo by Brett Bremer)
See DISTRICT, page 11