The Saint Louis wrestling team won regionals Feb, 15, 2023 at Ithaca highschool. The sharks competed against Lakeview and Ravenna. Defeating Lakeview by 45-20. The sharks then shut out Ravanna winning 81 to 0. This is the second wrestling regional championship in the last two years. 

Big performances for the night were; Drew Challender, Alex Rodriguez, and Junior Anguiano.

Coach Kevin Kuhn said, “ To earn back-to-back regional titles as a team is historic. The wrestling program has achieved a lot of great things, but this was another first. It proves that last year wasn’t a fluke and that we are in fact a program that shows consistency. The real matchup was us and Lakeview and we knew that coming in. It was a great night because we were able to get almost our entire lineup involved as we wrestled backups against Ravenna in the final. The biggest match and performance was when Dylan Marr had a double dislocation of a finger, yet managed to not only finish his match, but won when we needed a big win! That was some gutsy stuff there.” 

Junior Josh Dew said, “ Everyone on the team understood the vision we had set at the beginning of the year, the purpose and the goals we set that we were going to achieve. We all knew the game plan and roles in order to succeed. The team performed at a high level with everyone being into every match cheering and supporting the individual that was out there on the mat.  Giving up no pins was a huge and a great thing to be able to do against the team’s studs. Fighting and grinding for the whole 6 minutes was shown by everyone on the mat and showed the grit we have as a team. Being back-to-back is certainly a great feeling and something to always cherish as we are a part of history. It is certainly even better winning it twice. 

Junior Ben March said, “ I think that the team performed very well at team regionals. We had tremendous fight and vigor and we did not give up any easy points. When it comes to what it feels like to be back to back regional champs, in short it feels like all the hard work that we have been putting in this year is starting to pay off.”

The sharks were drawn as the second seed heading into the team state finals and their first match-up will be against Benzie Central. The state finals are held at the Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo, Mi Feb. 24-25, 2023.