WHITEHALL — “Every coach’s nightmare,” said Whitehall assistant coach Craig Christensen, became unfortunate reality Wednesday night at Whitehall’s senior night tri when a rules technicality resulted in the Vikings being forced to forfeit a dual to Montague.
In wrestling, teams conduct weigh-ins the night before each competition. Each wrestler’s weight is recorded and placed on the roster sheet that’s submitted to opposing coaches and match officials prior to the action. In this case, the Vikings’ roster sheet had one wrestler listed without a weight, making him ineligible to take the mat that evening.
The Whitehall/Fremont match, which the Vikings dominated 72-6, came and went without the error being caught, but during the dual with Montague, Wildcats’ coach Kris Maddox reported the issue to the scorers’ table. Officials were left with no recourse, by rule, but to call off the rest of the dual. Christensen said it was likely the Vikings would also have to forfeit the Fremont dual.
Adding to the frustration of the evening for the Vikings was that real-life circumstances likely played a role in the error; head coach Justin Zeerip dealt with a family emergency that had his family in Grand Rapids until past midnight Tuesday night. Christensen ran the weigh-in, and it was in the process of communicating the weights to one another that a number was omitted.
“We have fail-safes in place that all collapsed,” Christensen said. “As an assistant coach, when he hands me the weigh-in sheet, it’s assumed I’m going to look at it, and I glanced at it and assumed everything was okay and it wasn’t. Another coach looked at it and just didn’t see it.
“I’ll say this, I’ve coached with a million other guys and Justin Zeerip is the most attention-to-detail coach I’ve ever been around.”
While the frustration from the night’s events was palpable Wednesday, Christensen said the Viking wrestlers were the last people who needed cheering up after the dust had settled. Wednesday’s was the final regular season match; from here, it’s a sprint of high-stakes meets, from the West Michigan Conference tournament Friday to next week’s districts and beyond.
“Montague didn’t do anything wrong,” Christensen said. “They won the dual. It happened. But our guys are chewing barbed wire and spitting rivets. They’re ready to go. Sometimes, at the end of a long season, you look for things and ways to motivate yourselves, especially as a young kid. They’re ready to go to work tomorrow and that’s not always the case in a midweek dual or the next day at practice. Their parting words were, ‘Let’s get back to work.’”
Christensen said on the mat, apart from minor technical tweaks, the coaches saw nothing they disliked from the Viking wrestlers, who had built up a 47-0 lead against Montague before the snafu arose. The only Whitehall loss wrestled on the mat came at the hands of Fremont’s all-state star Tee Ward. Darnell Mack, Ryan Goodrich, Blake Morningstar, Cody Manzo, Jason Smith, Kolten Weiler, Nolan Taranko and Liam Leeke pinned their Fremont foes.
For Montague, it was an unorthodox way to have a 2-0 night, but the Wildcats were pleased with their 43-33 win over Fremont in the first dual of the evening, which came down to the final bout before Kaiden Jeffery scored a pin to clinch it. Savannah Winkleblack had one of the more dramatic wins against Fremont, earning a pin, and Tyler Risch and Maverick Osborne also scored pins in that dual.
“We wrestled well against Fremont,” Maddox said. “We had some lineup changes and we did well. That’s a good day for us there...We’re building on the little things and then improving on those. That’s what we’re looking to do, is grow from the little stuff.”
While the Vikings would never have gotten to where they are as a program by taking the districts for granted, even as heavy favorites, the added motivation of picking up their coach could create an impressive sight as Whitehall begins its quest for Kalamazoo.
“We were just talking about this at practice on Monday,” Christensen said. “In our culture, in our wrestling room, failure happens, and we pick each other up, and those boys can’t wait to pick (Zeerip) up. They’d run through a burning wall for him, and they’re ready to do just that on Friday.”
