Brothers' Success Just Start for Beaverton
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 28, 2018
In a movie, this season and the future of the Beaverton wrestling program would be the epilogue, explained to us with words on the screen while triumphant music played.
When Eric and Kyle Cassiday won Division 4 individual MHSAA championships in back-to-back matches last season with their father Bryan – who had started the program four years earlier – coaching matside, the script could have been completed.
“It’s one of the top five moments of my entire life,” said Kyle Cassiday, now a senior at Beaverton. “(After my match) all I could focus on was Eric – he went through so much with injuries, so to see him win it was amazing.”
But while the Cassidays are certainly at the heart of the program, creating this program wasn’t just about them. And there are plenty more memories to be made.
“I wanted to provide an opportunity for the kids who had been through the youth program, and those that wanted to join, to at least experience what I experienced in high school wrestling,” Bryan Cassiday said. “We were all brothers, and I wanted them to get to be able to do that. We had a lot of help (from outside the program). We’ve had a lot of people helping to influence a lot of different kids. It’s been a wonderful experience.”
Bryan Cassiday is a Gladwin graduate who coached the youth program there. That included his sons Eric, Kyle and Jacob, who started when they were elementary and preschool age. Bryan continued to coach when the family moved to Beaverton, but there appeared to be a cap on how much time they could be involved with the sport and attend their new school, as Beaverton didn’t have a wrestling program.
When Eric was about to enter high school, the Cassidays started looking at options to transfer, going as far as having a family vote at the dinner table. Kyle voted for Beaverton. Little did he or his family know that was about to become an option.
“Some of the football coaches came to me and said, ‘What would it take to start a program?’” Bryan Cassiday said. “We put together some numbers on what it would cost, did some fundraising, and started one.”
For the kids, it was a relief.
“I was so happy,” Kyle said. “I didn’t want to leave my friends. They deserved to wrestle as much as we did. It was more than just for me.”
That first season, Beaverton had 12 or 13 wrestlers, Bryan Cassiday said, including a solid core of youth wrestlers who were finally able to stay at their home school, like Eric.
By Year 3 of the program, the three boys all were part of it, with Jacob as a freshman, Kyle a sophomore and Eric a junior.
Wrestling was and is a way of life for the Cassidays, who have a mat in the garage to train – or settle a dispute, even if that was rare and mostly in the past.
“It doesn’t matter what season it is, we’re always looking forward to wrestling,” said Jacob Cassiday, who was a Finals qualifier at 152 pounds a year ago. “We don’t wrestle much in the house. We broke a couple light fixtures, then that stopped.”
For Jacob, growing up as the youngest of four children (they have an older sister, Brooke, who is 21), allowed him to learn quite a bit.
“I’ve always been the smaller one, and I’ve always had to work hard,” he said. “I never had it easy, and they never did either. I was a little pudgy, and they helped me get into shape, then helped me with getting through wrestling. They taught me how to work hard. My oldest brother Eric had probably the best motivation I’ve ever seen. He was always in the weight room or on the mat or on the football field. There was no offseason. And, of course, they taught me how to be humble, because there’s always someone out there who’s better.”
The older brothers got to see each other plenty in practice, as Kyle was at 189 pounds and Eric at 215 a year ago.
“We’re both really competitive – we love to win, it’s what we strive to do,” Kyle said. “Halfway through the year, we started to change our perspective and realized we had a chance at winning. We would point each other to different techniques. Sometimes it got pretty intense, and we’d get pretty heated.”
Brotherly tensions aren’t something Dad worries much about spilling over, though.
“Really very rarely did they ever have problems,” Bryan said. “There was a point in the season when I was trying to get everybody on edge a little bit, and there were a couple times I had to separate them, but nothing out of control; you could just tell they were wanting it. Generally speaking, to be very honest, I’ve seen siblings that argue and fight – my kids don’t do that. They hunt together, they wrestle together, they do pretty much everything together.”
They eventually won Division 4 titles together. At last winter’s Finals at Ford Field, Kyle defeated TJ Rizor of Leroy Pine River 8-1 in the 189-pound final, while Eric followed with a 4-0 win against Chase Gibson of Bronson at 215.
“There will never be a way, honestly, to describe what happened,” Bryan said. “I couldn’t talk. I was having a hard time coping with it, to be honest with you. It’s hard to become a state champion. It was the culmination of the years and years of hard work and the passion they put into it. They continued to work, and they got paid in the end.”
Kyle said his championship wouldn’t have meant nearly as much had his brother not won. It’s something they’ll be able to talk about when they’re 40, he said.
But there’s more work to do for all of the Cassidays and the program as a whole. Eric, who is now a freshman at Saginaw Valley State University, comes back home to help his dad coach. Kyle is looking to repeat as a Finals champ, and Jacob wants to take the next step at Ford Field and make his way onto the podium.
The program itself has more building to do, but it does have a solid core heading into this year as Cameron Austin and Jack Owens (fifth last season at 171) join the younger Cassidays as returning Finals qualifiers. For now, the top priority, Bryan Cassiday said, is improving every day.
In just four years, Beaverton wrestling has started to make a name for itself. Growing that name, Kyle Cassiday said, would be an even greater accomplishment that the incredible end to last season.
“I’d be more proud of building a successful program than a championship because it’s an end result,” he said. “It will be creating something for more than just me. It would be for a lot of different people.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Kyle Cassiday celebrates as he’s signaled the winner of last season’s Division 4 championship match at 189 pounds. (Middle) Eric and Kyle Cassiday share an embrace after Eric followed up with the win at 215 at Ford Field. (Click to see more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Freeland Establishing Itself as Annual Contender, Filling Schedule with More
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
December 10, 2025
Two years ago, Freeland was the upstart at the Division 2 Team Wrestling Finals.
While seeded second, the Falcons were making just their third appearance at the event, and advanced to the title match, where they lost to Lowell.
Now, following a second-straight trip to the Quarterfinals and with the No. 3 ranking attached to it early this season, Freeland is looked at much differently.
“I feel like everyone wants to be an underdog against us,” junior Colton Cunningham said. “We’re definitely more known now. We aren’t just a wrestling team, we’re here to win.”
The Falcons, who lost two individual finalists but returned the majority of their team from a year ago, are 7-0 to start the season, with a win over No. 9 North Branch.
The toughest stretch of their season is coming up, though, and the fact they’ve been able to schedule what they have might be the biggest sign of their rise.
On Dec. 20, Freeland will host a team tournament featuring multiple ranked opponents. Among them are Division 2’s Nos. 1 and 2 teams, Lowell and Three Rivers.
“The big guys want to come to us now,” Cunningham said.
The meet will serve as an early measuring stick for the teams, and could be a large decider of seeding as Freeland and Three Rivers try to chase down Lowell, which has won 12 straight titles in Division 2.
“I think that we can show everyone where we’re at, but we can also find out where we’re at this year,” Freeland senior Easton Rosebush said. “We have kind of a freshman-heavy team, but a lot of them are at a super high level already. It can be a motivator, like ‘Wow, we did this well.’ Or, ‘Wow, we have this far to go.’”
The learning where they are part is what Freeland coach Jon Rosebush is most focused on. He said he’s beefed up the Falcons’ schedule to make sure they’re ready for February.
“I think we’ll see 11 state-ranked teams before the first of the year,” Jon Rosebush said. “That’s what I’ve always preached, we have to start getting after the toughest competition and challenging these guys. Otherwise, come the postseason, we’re not going to be prepared. It’s hard, because you have to be on your game all the time, and if you’re not on your game all the time, you’re probably going to take a pounding. But we don’t look at our wins and losses; all it is is preparation for that postseason.”
Rosebush added that his athletes have bought into that mentality, and it doesn’t appear as if it was a hard sell.
“I just love the competition,” Freeland senior Zack Clark said. “I feel like in football that was where we struggled, where we didn’t have many good teams to play. But I feel like in wrestling, we always push for good competition. It makes you get on that level. I’m excited to see Lowell earlier in the season.”
Having a dynasty like Lowell sitting on top of your division can be tough. The Red Arrows are on a historic run, and with three more titles would tie a state record for consecutive Finals titles in any sport.
But having been in a Final and seen Lowell up close didn’t demoralize the Falcons – it motivated them.
“When we wrestled them in the Finals, we took five matches against them,” Rosebush said. “We get a couple more matches out of it and it’s 7-7. We’re not that far off with them. Knowing that, knowing where our kids are at, we’re trying to get up to that level.
“Lowell has such a good program over there. They have a community that supports them 100 percent. They have an athletic department that supports them 100 percent. We’re trying to get there. It’s more motivation for us and drives us as coaches.”
That drove Freeland back to the 2025 Finals, as the Falcons won back-to-back Regional titles for the first time. In fact, their 2024 and 2025 Quarterfinal runs doubled the number of appearances in program history (2004 and 2021).
But the 2025 run ended in that Quarterfinal with a loss against eventual finalist Fowlerville. It was a devastating defeat for the Falcons, but once again they found a way to turn that into fuel.
“It was a disappointment and devastating because we knew we won’t be able to wrestle again with our seniors we had that year,” Freeland sophomore Preston Wetherell said. “But there was definitely a fire feeling that makes you want to come back and work harder in the summer. Come back and just keep up that intensity.”
Freeland graduated its two most successful wrestlers, as Fabian Facundo and Buddy Leonard wrapped up their seasons and careers in the Division 2 Individual Finals at Ford Field. Facundo was the champion at 175 pounds, while Leonard was runner-up at 144.
Facundo became the program’s fourth champion, and first since 2004. The previous two won in 1966.
“He was my friend, and I was really proud of him,” said Freeland senior Brigham Smith, who had also qualified for the Individual Finals. “I was excited. But it also showed me the possibilities of what I could do if I put my mind to it.”
Smith is one of three current Freeland wrestlers who has competed at the Individual Finals. Easton Rosebush is a two-time qualifier (2023 and 2024), having placed eighth at 106 as a sophomore. Senior Ella Mae Klopf qualified in the Girls Division as a freshman.
There is plenty of postseason experience on the roster, though, thanks to two years of competing at Team Finals.
That’s trickling down to the group of talented underclassmen who already had plenty of belief, having watched their program ascend to new heights.
“Personally, for me, it’s great,” Freeland freshman Wyatt Brewer said. “I get to wrestle with a lot of great wrestlers who are able to teach me a lot of things. They give us confidence and support us, so we don’t have as much pressure and can just wrestle.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Freeland’s Brigham Smith, right, wrestles a Fowlerville opponent during last season’s Division 2 Quarterfinal. (Middle) Easton Rosebush, top, works to roll over his Gladiators opponent. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)