Manchester's Tobias Starts Recent Run of 4-Time Individual Finals Champs
By
John Johnson
MHSAA Communications Director emeritus
February 26, 2025
The MHSAA Wrestling Tournament began in 1948. In the first 52 years of the tournament only six grapplers had achieved the ultimate – winning four individual titles. And the first to achieve that – Mike Mills of Mt. Pleasant – didn’t do it until 1979. Before that, there had only been nine three-time champs.
Flip the page to 2000 and a run of four-peat masters has occurred, and heading into the 2025 MHSAA Individual Wrestling Finals this week, we celebrate here the 25th anniversary of the first of that group – Jeremiah Tobias of Manchester High School.
Tobias is the leader of a group of 30 wrestlers have captured four titles in their careers over the past 25 years. A career sweep has been claimed by at least one wrestler in each season since 2017, with 16 four-timers during that span. Two three-time champs – Jackson Blum of Lowell (Div. 2-132 pounds) and Sebastian Martinez of Riverview Gabriel Richard (Div. 4 at 175 pounds) — stand at the fore to join the club this year.
Tobias captured his fourth title in impressive style at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, pinning his four opponents in a stunningly-low combined time of 3:30 – an average of 52 seconds per match. Since then, only Derek Saari of Escanaba has spent less time in Finals combat with four pins at 2:58 (44.5 second average) to win the Upper Peninsula title at 119 pounds in 2007.
Over the last 25 years, 30 wrestlers on 32 occasions have pinned their four opponents en route to the title in the boys Finals – and since the girls division started in 2022, it’s happened nine times in those brackets. Achieving four-pin Finals titles twice were Zach Perrin of Corunna in 2005 and 2006 and Ira Jenkins of Whitehall in 2021 and 2022.
For Tobias, his championships came at 125, 130, 135 and 145 pounds. He finished his career with a 182-3 record, not losing a match after the District Final of his freshman year – a loss he avenged during the following weeks’ Regional and Final tournaments. He rang up a winning streak of 144 matches and did not have an opponent score a takedown on him over his last three seasons. Only a football injury his junior year, which caused him to miss 31 bouts, prevented him from compiling even more impressive numbers.
Following his final match to clinch the fourth title, a pin in 1:12 which brought the crowd at The Joe to a standing ovation, Tobias told The Detroit News, “I’m speechless. I knew this was the last match of my high school career and I wanted to make the most of it. This is the way I wanted to be remembered by.”
He went on to the University of Michigan and posted an 82-21 record in a reserve role from 2001-05 – pinning 57 of his opponents, which is still a school record. Seventeen of those pins came as a sophomore, another school record. He was honored three times with the Bill Shaw Award – recognizing the team’s top 11th man.
Tobias entered the college coaching ranks following graduation, which included 10 years at Alma College – five as its head coach. He is currently a fitness teacher at St. Mary’s School in Alma and remains active in youth wrestling circles.
FOX Sports Detroit featured Tobias during its coverage of the 2000 Individual Wrestling Finals, and we have video of that feature and his championship match with Jeremy Windsor of Fulton for your enjoyment. (His match follows the interview at 1:07.)
PHOTO Manchester's Jeremiah Tobias celebrates his fourth championship at the 2000 Individual Wrestling Finals.
D4 Final: Hudson Pins 4th Straight
February 25, 2012
BATTLE CREEK – Hudson wrestlers know how to win MHSAA championships.
And the Tigers’ seniors will leave high school never knowing how it feels to lose a title match at Battle Creek’s Kellogg Arena.
Shelby made Saturday’s Division 4 Final as tough as any Hudson has won over the last four seasons. But after opening with a major decision win, top-seeded Hudson never trailed in claiming a 33-22 victory that gave five seniors four team championships.
“We come in day in and day out, bust our butts, and finally get to reap the benefits,” Hudson senior Devan Marry said. “It’s been more than just four years of high school. We’ve been doing this since middle school. And now it’s finally paid off.”
Since 1988, the start of MHSAA team championships being awarded using a dual-match format, only Dundee and Davison have won at least four straight – Dundee from 1995-98 and Davison five from 2002-06.
But No. 3-seeded Shelby – posting its highest team finish since 1972 – threatened to break the streak multiple times after outlasting No. 2 seed New Lothrop for a 29-28 Semifinal win that came down to Shelby having the most falls.
Hudson coach Scott Marry said his staff began scouting Shelby a month ago. Working out every possible scenario, he and his coaches saw Saturday’s Final coming down to as few as seven points – leaving little room for error.
Junior Austin Felt won a major decision at 103 pounds to pull Shelby within 26-19 with three matches to wrestle. Hudson sophomore Isaac Dusseau pushed his team’s lead back to 10 with a 6-2 decision at 112. But Hudson’s clinching win came in simply avoiding a heavy loss – freshman Tyler Roberts dropped a 4-0 decision to Shelby senior Will Foster at 119. But in avoiding any worse fate, he clinched the match win and the team championship.
Hudson (27-2) won only eight individual matches in the Final, to Shelby’s six. But four came from four of those seniors – Marry, Joel Varney, Luke Sparapani and James Herron.
“Every one of these seniors, I’ve known them for seven or eight years. They’re my boy’s best friends, and that’s a huge advantage,” said Scott Marry, also Devan’s father. “And I don’t think that just because this senior class was so good that this is the end of Hudson wrestling by any means. But those seniors had a big part of what happened today.”
Shelby’s Saturday was filled with heroics as well. The Tigers opened the Semifinal up 18-0 before falling behind and needing a major decision in the final match to force the tie-breaker scenario.
Shelby finished this season 33-3 and will send eight wrestlers to next weekend’s Individual Finals.
“We’re battlers. Tough, hard-nosed kids,” Shelby coach Ed Felt said. “They never quit. They never give up.”
Click for match-by-match results from the Final, Semifinals and Quarterfinals. See more photos at High School Sports Scene.
