The St. Louis Wrestling team competed at the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 4 State Championship Tournament at Wings Events Center in Kalamazoo Friday, Feb. 25.

This hasn’t been an easy trek for the trail-weary Sharks. After 27 grueling years of searching for a regional championship, they finally found it. After being ranked third in the state by Michigan Grappler, the Sharks came away from the seed meeting with a disappointing fourth rank which heavily affected the team’s ability to advance through the tournament. Despite being thrown to the wrong side of the bracket, the Sharks competed well with what they had.

On Friday, the team went out and smashed Decatur in the quarter-finals by a score of 53-18. The performance was unlike any other meet the team had been to before. As Justice Onstott stated, “We brought so much more energy. I was very proud of all of our guys, even the ones who lost. However, on the second day I felt that the pressure got to our guys and we under wrestled.” Onstott and Colin Kuhn were the only two wrestlers to go two and zero on the weekend.

 The Sharks fought hard against the number one ranked Hudson team on Saturday. This was a hard meet for the Sharks, knowing that Hudson was favored by far. Unphased by this cloud of weariness, the Sharks still competed till the very end scraping together nine points.

 Coach Kevin Kuhn stated, “I was disappointed in the number of pins. It has always been a personal philosophy that no matter how good someone else is you can still fight off your back.  Mentally, many of our guys simply accepted the pin. I hope that after being able to compete against a program like Hudson we will be more motivated to catch up in the off-season.  On a high note, there was a lot of student support for such a long drive. Despite having a smaller group than desired school spirit still thrived. “It’s been really fun watching wrestling this year and seeing the athlete’s progress. While Saturday didn’t turn out how they wanted, I am still so proud of the team for getting that far.”

This is the Sharks’ last team competition and eight individuals will be moving forward to the individual tournament March 6, at Ford Field for the State Finals.