By By DON OWNBY / Special to the Daily News
The Dowagiac MYWAY wrestling team capped off a stellar season recently by placing nine members at the state finals, including two state champions.
Ryan Franco and Garrett Pillivant both claimed championships at Michigan State's Jenison Fieldhouse the weekend of March 30.
Franco and Pillivant were dominant over some very good competition.
"I was very proud of them, I was proud of all our wrestlers this season," Ownby said. "This was our second year doing the MYWAY circuit, and by far our best season."
Ownby added that they had some pretty good little wrestlers in the club this year and some real fast learners.
Besides Franco and Pillivant, Dowagiac captured seven more plaques during the weekend event. Deny White (7th), Derek Collett (2nd), Austin Franco (3rd), Zach Checkley (6th), Tristan Howard (4th) all brought home hardware, as did Kyle Frese (5th) and Tyler Frese (2nd).
"Truthfully we should've had more," he said. "We had a very tough regional to qualify. Our 11 qualifiers doesn't do us justice, we should have qualified another five or six wrestlers. We just came up a little short in a few matches at the regional in Portage.
The club had a lot of brother combinations on our squad this year. Andrew and Alex McIntosh, Zach and Jarred Checkley, Austin and Ryan Franco, Connor and Tristan Howard, Jason and Nicholas Weber, along with Tyler and Kyle Frese.
"It's nice when you have brothers with the same interest in wrestling," Ownby said. "It made my job a lot easier, because these kids were constantly practicing what we taught them on each other well after practice. They were so in to it, and competitive, that they created a positive environment in the practice room for everyone.
"The future bodes well for the Dowagiac program with these kids participating. Most of these brother tandems were new to folk style wrestling and very welcomed additions. Our little guys tore it up during the regular season. Most of them were in the top four places every weekend. With another year under their belt, they'll be right there with the best of the best.
"This is a very nice youth program for the state of Michigan. It's been around about five years now and it continues to grow in numbers every year. When John (coach Green) and I decided to do this, our hope was to get a few kids involved and peak their interest in the sport of wrestling, teach them the basic and give them a jump start for their junior and senior high careers. We didn't think too many kids would be ready for competition this early in the game. We had some really dedicated kids and parents, everyone did their part in helping make this year successful," he added.
Ownby said he hopes the club doubles in size next year.
"Our goal is to form an elementary dual team for next season and compete for a team state championship in Battle Creek," he said. "We have a very solid foundation, but a lot of weight classes to fill. We can only hope that more kids' interest will be peaked in the community, after seeing what these guys were able to accomplish this season."
If anyone is interested in getting more information on MYWAY and the Dowagiac club, please contact Ownby 782-6573 or check out our website www.dowagiacwrestling.com and click on the youth link.