Finals Qualifiers Show Strength of Muskegon Catholic Central's Gains on Mat
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
March 2, 2023
Muskegon Catholic Central is the smallest wrestling school in Muskegon County, with just 124 students in the high school.
It also happens to be the only school in the county with two individual Regional champions in senior David Hill (157 pounds) and junior Easten Cook (165 pounds), who hope to add all-state honors to their resume when they compete at the MHSAA Individual Finals on Friday and Saturday at Ford Field in Detroit.
Now, don’t expect wrestling to usurp football as the sport of choice at MCC – which with 12 state titles during the playoff era is behind only now-closed Farmington Hills Harrison’s 13 championships – but throw in another Finals qualifier in senior Zach Michael (175) and the Crusaders grapplers boast three headed to Ford Field, not bad for a school which had only four wrestlers in the entire program in 2019.
“It’s been a great year for our program and our school, and we’re having a blast,” said fifth-year MCC coach Barry Kieft, who is assisted by PJ Mitchell.
“Those three state qualifiers are all stud football players. That sends a great message to the younger kids that wrestling will make you better on the football field.”
Hill was a star running back for the Crusaders’ Division 6 District finalist football team this fall, who had to get over a stigma to become a star on the mat.
“I used to be a germaphobe, so it’s hard to believe I even started wrestling,” said Hill, who is 32-7 this season and has 107 career wins. “But at some point, something changed. I love the independent part of it. You have to go out there and do it; you can’t blame anything on other people.”
Hill, the son of former Muskegon Reeths-Puffer all-state running back DeMarkeo Hill, who led the Rockets to the Class A championship in 1992 and tragically died of brain cancer five years ago at the age of 44, calls his dad his athletic hero and his inspiration before every match.
David Hill made short work of the field at 157 pounds at the Feb. 11 Division 4 Regional at Ithaca, including a pin at the 1:00 mark in the championship match.
This will be his second appearance at the Individual Finals, after placing fourth at Regionals last year. He believes his experience, speed and unorthodox style give him a shot at the title.
“I have a unique style, that’s for sure,” said Hill, a three-sport athlete who also runs track in the spring. “My coaches don’t know what to say to me because a lot of what I do isn’t conventional wrestling moves. So they just say, ‘Go out there and wrestle like David Hill.’”
Cook, meanwhile, is a conventional tactician at 165, the next weight class up from Hill.
Cook, a starting guard and linebacker on the football field, embraces the mental and physical challenges of wrestling.
“I think my biggest strength is my mental preparation and thinking things through,” said Cook, who got started in the sport in fifth grade when he was hanging around his older brother and now-MCC assistant coach, Aiden Cook. “I like the hardships that come with wrestling and seeing if you are strong enough to overcome it.”
Easten Cook, who as his name suggests, loves to experiment with different foods (right now, he and Hill eat a small granola bar dipped in honey before each match), won his Regional championship match 9-4.
Cook sports his team’s best record at 37-7, with city, District and Regional titles. He has 82 career wins.
The third member of the Crusaders’ Finals trio is Michael, who has a 32-9 season record and 89 career wins.
In addition to the three qualifiers, MCC also had two wrestlers eclipse the 20-win plateau this season in juniors Andrew Rosema (138) and Sawyer Hanson (190).
That additional depth nearly pushed the Crusaders to a team District championship Feb. 8. MCC downed Holton, 52-18, in the District Semifinal, before a narrow loss to Ravenna, 42-36, in the championship match.
Kieft said his team’s three Finals qualifiers are all ultra-competitive and have pushed each other to greater heights.
“They just pound each other in practice, sometimes too much,” Kieft said with a laugh, thinking of some of the trio’s practice battles in the wrestling room above MCC’s James Morse Jr. auxiliary gymnasium. “We had to go to 30-second rounds when they practice because if they go 1 minute, it gets too intense.”
Kieft said another reason for his team’s postseason success is a regular season of competing against larger schools.
Kieft, 71, has also been an assistant football and baseball coach at MCC in recent years. He recently decided to retire from coaching those two sports, but plans to continue leading the wrestling program.
“People ask me all the time: “Don’t you want to be in Florida during the winter?’,” said Kieft, who was an assistant wrestling coach at Fruitport in the 1990s. “No, I love doing this. I’ve been down there in the sun and all that, but I miss this. I enjoy being with the wrestling kids.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Easten Cook’s arm is raised in victory after a match this season. (Middle) Muskegon Catholic Central wrestling coach Barry Kieft. (Below) David Hill works to establish control during a match against Whitehall. (Photos courtesy of Karen Kieft.)
Baldwin Hopes to Set Example for Aspiring Saginaw Wrestlers with Rapid Rise
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
December 11, 2024
When Michael Baldwin began his wrestling career as a freshman at Saginaw Arthur Hill, coach Angel Rodriguez recognized he had a special talent on his hands almost immediately.
Almost.
“I didn’t think I’d be back in that room after a week, to be honest,” Baldwin said. “My first practice, I threw up and passed out, so I thought that was going to be my last time in a wrestling room. So, I definitely didn’t think I’d make it this far.”
Baldwin bounced back nicely from that first day and has turned himself into one of the best wrestlers in the state as he begins his senior season. The now-Saginaw United wrestler is coming off a third-place finish at the 2024 Individual Finals and is ranked No. 1 at 175 pounds in Division 1 by Michigan Grappler.
It’s a quick rise, but one that Rodriguez has seen as possible all along, despite that rough start.
“You could see it his freshman year,” Rodriguez said. “You could see him wanting to be better and better and better, trying to get better at every situation. His sophomore year, he went straight into wrestling again. You could see it, it’s just that you don’t know how special it’s going to become.”
Baldwin already has put himself among the best wrestlers to ever come through the city. His third-place finish at 165 pounds is tied for the best at Arthur Hill, with his brother Lionel’s third place in 2023.
Saginaw High, which joined with Arthur Hill to form Saginaw United this fall, had produced a pair of Finals champions – Quinton Moore in 2010 and Yohanas Moore in 1987. Baldwin knows what it would mean to join them representing United’s first-year program.
“It would be huge, and after that, I would really hope that people in our city and our community would start to look at wrestling a little bit more,” Baldwin said. “To be completely honest, it’s all football and basketball here. Those sports are great, and they’re cool and they’re mainstream, and they definitely make the most money if you become the best in the world at it. A sport like wrestling is just so life-changing, that it’s almost like a gift to share it with other people. I’m forever grateful to my brother for introducing me to the sport. So, if I could win states and really put it out there that there’s somebody from Saginaw who’s the best wrestler in the state of Michigan, I feel like then maybe parents would start to encourage their kids to wrestle.”
Baldwin knows that with wrestling seeing is believing, as it’s what flipped the switch for him. It wasn’t until he watched his brother qualify for the 2022 Finals tournament that he really started to believe he could make some noise in the sport.
“When I think about it, I think, ‘What can I do for other people that my brother’s done for me?’ Which is why I go to all these national tournaments and why I try to perform at such a high level,” Baldwin said. “All it took for me was my brother showing me it was possible to go to states, because I didn’t think stuff like that was possible. I never thought about making it to the state Finals as a football team, or for any other sport, I never thought about being the best in the state, at all. Seeing my brother be one of the best wrestlers in the state, it just showed me how possible that stuff was. At this point, four years into my career, I think anything is possible.”
Winning a Finals title is the immediate goal for Baldwin, and he’s off to a good start. He placed third this past weekend at the Grappler Gold Invitational, with his one loss coming to eventual champion Kole Katschor of Dundee, who is a returning Finals champion. Katschor defeated three-time Finals champion Sebastian Martinez of Riverview Gabriel Richard in the final of a stacked GGI 175-pound bracket.
Over the summer, Baldwin wrestled in several national tournaments, and placed fifth at the Grappler Fall Classic, with his only losses coming against nationally-ranked Max Harmon from Tennessee. He’s also been one match away from placing at the nationals in Fargo, N.D., the most illustrious tournament in the country for high schoolers.
Colleges have begun to notice, as he’s had talks with several from the NAIA level all the way up to Division I.
That’s despite the fact it’s not well-known he’s only been wrestling since his freshman year. Combined with his being ranked No. 1 academically in his class, that makes him a remarkably attractive prospect.
“I’m sure when I tell them that, they start to see the potential,” Baldwin said. “I have so much to learn and so much to get better at.”
The ultimate goal is to be a world champion, and Baldwin spends his offseason wrestling in freestyle and Greco Roman tournaments to make that a reality.
It’s a lofty goal, for sure, but after seeing what Baldwin has been able to accomplish during his short time with the sport, it does feel as though anything is possible.
“It’s surreal,” Rodriguez said. “Because, you see the talent in the city. You see the talent in the school. You see the type of kids that have the ability to be great, or fantastic, or do something that someone’s never done. To have it be one of my athletes, one of my wrestlers and a kid in my room, it’s surreal. It’s crazy.
“At one point in time, when I started coaching, I couldn’t get a kid past Regionals. … Seeing these kids wear an Arthur Hill singlet, or a Saginaw United singlet, being from the city area and doing what he’s doing – I don’t know, it’s unreal. You would never expect it, because we’re not a school known for wrestling. We’re not an area known for wrestling. But to have one of the top-level kids in your area, in your room, and have the ability to coach him, it’s probably one of the coolest things as a coach that I’ve been able to do.”
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) Saginaw Arthur Hill’s Michael Baldwin (left) wrestles Byron Center’s Blake Ottow during a third-place match at last season’s Individual Finals. (Middle) Baldwin looks to make his move. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)