Strong Start Sends Tower Rising Again
January 17, 2019
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Wrestling Team Districts are in three weeks. Two weeks later, Michigan’s best teams will converge for the Finals at Kalamazoo’s Wings Stadium.
Teams at the elite level like Warren Woods-Tower point to those championship opportunities all season. And the Titans – Division 2 semifinalists last year, runners-up in 2017 – are aiming to shine that final weekend again, and after a start both promising and historic.
Tower – the MHSAA/Applebee’s Team of the Month for December – won the 45th Macomb County Invitational on Dec. 22, the Titans’ first victory at the prestigious event since 1985.
They bested a field that included current Division 1 No. 10 Macomb Dakota and Division 3 No. 5 Algonac, which followed in second and third, respectively. Tower is ranked No. 4 in Division 2 this week.
“It wasn’t that we won it; it was the fashion that we won it in,” Tower coach Greg Mayer said while looking back this week. “We had some guys who had great performances. We had some guys who were unseeded who placed. We had a couple kids upset some kids – pretty much everybody outwrestled where they were seeded.
“It took everybody. The margin of victory was so slim. … It’s nice to see that some of those other guys, their efforts paid off and they contributed. It gives some kids confidence in their training efforts. They can believe in that because they’ve got results to stand behind them.”
Tower edged Dakota by 2.5 points at the County tournament after finishing second to Dakota in both 2017 and 2016.
Along the way this time, senior Chaise Mayer – Greg’s nephew – became the fourth four-time County champion, winning the 130-pound weight class. Freshman Omari Embree won the 160-pound class, while sophomore Joey Haynes (119) and senior David Stepanian (135) were runners-up.
The County tournament success followed a notable run earlier in December at Tower’s Titan Duals, where the team fell to Oxford and Goodrich but defeated Eaton Rapids and Richmond. Oxford is No. 7 in Division 1 this week and Goodrich is No. 3 in Division 2, while Eaton Rapids is No. 2 in Division 2 and Richmond is No. 2 in Division 3.
The Titans headed into this week 6-3 in duals and coming off a runner-up finish at their Saturday Clash of Champions, where they finished second to Division 1 No. 9 Holt.
A number of Titans are shining through the first half of the season, with records especially impressive considering the teams Tower has faced over the last seven weeks. Chaise Mayer, a two-time Finals runner-up and third-place finisher a year ago, is 21-3, as is Haynes and senior Joel Radvansky (285 pounds this winter and last season’s Finals runner-up at 215). Freshman Josh Howey (23-6, 112 pounds), sophomore Gavin Shoobridge (22-6, 119) and senior CJ Shier (20-5, 215) are all over 20 wins, with Embree (18-3) approaching.
The tests will continue, and immediately. Hudson’s Super 16 tournament is Saturday, and next Thursday’s dual against Macomb Dakota likely will end up determining the champion of the Macomb Area Conference Red this winter.
Then comes the MHSAA Tournament, and all of Division 2’s quest to unseat five-time reigning champion Lowell. Tower, seeking its first Finals championship in wrestling, is doing its work now to be ready for an opportunity to show this season’s first month was a precursor for the last.
“We’re still a work in progress. We still have a lot of room for improvement. We’re still chasing,” Greg Mayer said. “We’re not the frontrunners. That still belongs to Lowell, and I think everybody else is chasing them.
“I think we can compete with anybody in the state. As long as we continue to improve, I think we’ll be OK.”
Past Teams of the Month, 2018-19
November: Rochester Adams girls swimming & diving – Read
October: Leland boys soccer – Read
September: Pickford football – Read
August: Northville girls golf – Read
PHOTOS: (Top) Warren Woods-Tower's David Stepanian, left, prepares to lock up with an opponent during the Macomb County Invitational. (Middle) The Titans raise the County championship trophy, their first since 1985. (Photos courtesy of C&G Newspapers.)
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.