Longtime Coach Vlcek has Manchester On Pace to Contend in D4 Title Race
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
December 19, 2023
Steve Vlcek is 34 years into his varsity coaching career at Manchester and might have his best team yet.
The season still has a long way to go, of course, but Vlcek is confident that what is being built right now in the Flying Dutchmen wrestling room is something special.
“I always call this our preseason,” he said. “We’ll have four tournaments before the new year. That’s 26 or 27 matches per kid. That way, we can figure out where we are at, what we need to work on more. Then we can start tweaking stuff a little bit.
“It’s been a really great start. I see a lot of improvement in our team.”
Vlcek, who has won more than 700 meets in his career, and Manchester have been on the cusp before. The Flying Dutchmen have won 18 straight District championships and own a dozen Regional titles. Manchester was the Division 4 runner-up in 2008 and has reached the Semifinals multiple times.
The last two years, they’ve qualified for MHSAA Team Finals weekend but have lost the first day in Quarterfinals.
“It’s been a little frustrating, but you have to keep plugging away,” Vlcek said. “We’re trying. We have a good shot the next couple of years.”
Vlcek was a football guy at Manchester, but when the school didn’t field football in 1981, he turned to wrestling.
“We didn’t have football my freshman year, and I was driving my mom crazy,” Vlcek said. “I took up wrestling.”
During his four years with the varsity, Manchester went through three coaches. It was his final coach, Dan Jordan, who invited Vleck back a couple of years later to work with some of the wrestlers on the team.
“He called me up and asked if in my free time I would come and work with a couple kids,” Vlcek said. “Two years later, I was the junior high coach, and two years after that he resigned, recommended me for the job and I got it. He did a really good job of bringing up the program.”
Vleck never thought he would be a coach, but it became his passion.
“Once I started working with the kids, I really enjoyed it,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how much I would like it as a 19-year-old, or 20-year-old kid, but I did.”
Some of his early Manchester teams struggled with numbers. They’d often have seven or eight wrestlers win matches but lose in a dual-meet format because of the forfeits. That started to change during the mid-2000s.
“We started getting good classes together, and that made a considerable difference,” he said.
He picked things up from rival coaches, some of whom he has become friends with over the years.
“You pick up little things from each coach you coach against,” he said.
He credits a strong youth program at Manchester with developing wrestlers at a young age.
“We have a very involved youth program,” he said. “They’ve brought a good product to me. I try to stay away from it, let them develop it. We are very lucky to have it.”
He also credits a slew of assistant coaches, such as Mike Bunn.
“I can name 20 guys who have come into the room and make the program better every day,” he said. “I have my son (Brock) coaching with me now, and I really enjoy that.”
The Flying Dutchmen have 10 juniors on this year’s squad, including Sammy Stewart, who won an Individual Finals title last year at 113 pounds, and Blake Sloan, who was runner-up at 138.
Stewart missed a good part of the 2022 season while recovering from a hand injury.
“He had a really bad accident in shop class,” Vlcek said. “He almost cut his hand off. He came back in mid-January. He definitely had to overcome some obstacles. He avenged the loss he had (during the regular season) in the state finals.”
Sloan is another of the super sophomores. He’s coming off a record-setting football season in which he rushed for more than 2,100 yards.
“I can’t ask more out of those guys,” Vlcek said. “They put their time in and help their teammates out. We have seven or eight kids who have been state qualifiers. We still have some work to do, but there is improvement.”
Manchester is 10-2 in dual meets to start this season, giving Vlcek 711 career victories. The Flying Dutchmen have played a good schedule and have been ranked anywhere from No. 2 to No. 5 in early-season team rankings.
“I like to be challenged,” Vlcek said. “You don’t get better without wrestling the best.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Sammy Stewart’s hand is raised by the official in victory after the Manchester standout won his championship match at the Individual Finals in March. (Middle) Teammate Blake Sloan, right, considers his next move during his championship match last season. (Below) Coach Steve Vlcek embraces Stewart after the victory. (Click for more from High School Sports Scene.)
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.)