02/22/2025
Jacob Everett lit a spark.
Joel Simon got a fire going.
Bryan Aguilera blew up a whole crate of fireworks.
Those three had the first real successes for the Lakewood varsity wrestling team in its MHSAA Division 3 State Quarterfinal against Whitehall at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo Friday. The fifth-seeded Lakewood Vikings “upset“ fourth-seeded Whitehall 38-28 to earn a spot in Saturday’s D3 State Semifinals against third-seeded Yale.
The freshman Everett drew gasps and the first real signs of enthusiasm from the Lakewood bench when he earned a quick reversal against Whitehall senior Gavin Craner in the 190-pound match. Craner recovered to pin Everett moments later, in 1:27 total, and improve to 54-0 on the season. Craner is the defending 175-pound state champion in D3, and was the state runner-up at that weight class wrestling for Belding back when he was a sophomore. Only a handful of wrestlers all season have been even able to score an escape point or two against him - let alone a reversal.
Craner’s pin did put the Whitehall Vikings in front 16-0 three matches into the quarterfinal. Simon, a senior, got the Vikings their first points on the team scoreboard with a 1-0 decision against Parker Mott in the 215-pound bout, although that was a weight class where Lakewood may have really been hoping to get more than three points.
Aguilera, another senior, followed up with a stunning heavyweight match in which he pinned Whitehall’s Wyatt Jenkins at the 3-minute mark, one minute into the second period. Jenkins, who won an individual regional title at 215 pounds last weekend and is now 49-3 overall this season, scored a couple nearfall points and led 5-0 at the end of the first period. Aguilera got a throw in half a minute into the second period though and turned it into a pin that sent the Vikings into a frenzy.
Whitehall started the dual with a pair of five-point technical falls thanks to Blake English outscoring junior Alexander Risk 16-0 at 165 pounds and Liam Leeke taking a 19-4 win over junior Owen Prowdley at 175.
The Vikings did some work making up for a tough individual regional last Saturday in Whitehall. Lakewood head coach Tony Harmer said Everett’s reversal there against Craner was a good pick-me-up for Everett after a heart-breaking blood round loss at the individual regional. Aguilera and Dakota Harmer both had blood round losses at individual regionals too and came up huge for Lakewood Friday. Another Lakewood senior, Kade Boucher, was pretty happy to extend his high school wrestling career another day after he wasn’t able to earn the return to trip to the individual state finals he was seeking this season.
Dakota in the 106-pound bout got an escape early in the third period for the first point in his contest with Whitehall’s Thomas Leeke. The score was evened in the last seconds as Leeke was awarded a point for a stalling penalty against Dakota, but in the one-minute sudden victory overtime period it was Dakota scoring a take down in the closing seconds that earned him a 4-1 win.
Lakewood went on to get a 9-1 major decision from Stephen Aldrich in his 113-pound match with Kassie Sapp, a 4-0 win from Vincent Stamm over Max Kurkowski at 126 pounds, a 17-7 major decision for Kade Boucher at 132 pounds against JAson Sheaffer and an 8-0 major decision from Lydon Rogers int he 138-pound match against Kolten Weiler.
Aldrich’s win at 113 tied the dual at 16-16 at the midway point. Cody Manzo pinned Lakewood’s Eric Bartlett 52 seconds into the 120-pound match to put Whitehall momentarily back in front 22-16.
The string of wins by Stamm, Boucher and Rogers had Lakewood up 27-12. Whitehall’s Caden Varela took a pin in the 144-pound match against Lakewood’s Bryce Goodemoot that flipped the lead again to 28-27 in favor of Whitehall. Goodemoot put up a solid fight, but Varela finally got him on his back in the final minute of the third period.
From there, Bryson Boucher and Calder Villanueva took care of business for Lakewood. Bryson went right at Wyatt McFarren with one of Lakewood’s most aggressive performances of the night and pinned him 1:41 into the opening period. Villianueva basically just needed to not get pinned to seal the win for Lakewood, and that never was much of a concern as he took a 19-3 technical fall against Colton Kyser.
Bryson Boucher, Stamm and Simon are the three Lakewood grapplers who also have more wrestling ahead next weekend at Ford Field in Detroit for the MHSAA Division 3 Individual State Finals.
The win Friday was a big turnaround from when the two teams met back in December of 2024. Whitehall beat the Lakewood team 46-24 Dec. 28 at Grandville’s Marge and Tate Frederick Invitational. Dakota Harmer flipped his match from that one. Thomas Leeke beat him 7-2 in Grandville, and the Vikings didn’t have Aguilera in the line-up at that point, and coach Harmer said his team had a lot of guys still working on getting to the weight they wanted to wrestle at back then. Villanueva didn’t wrestle that day either and LHS Vikings had a void in the line-up at 120 pounds.
Perennial state champion Dundee is set to take on Allegan in the other state semifinal at noon in Kalamazoo Saturday. Dundee dispatched of its quarterfinal opponent, Ogemaw Heights 75-6, while Lakewood in Whitehall were at the midpoint of their dual. Allegan beat Hart 35-24 and Yale toppled Madison 41-24 in the other two D3 State Quarterfinals Friday.
Dundee has only missed appearing in the Division 3 State Final once since 2007 and has won 11 state titles since then including the last seven. Whitehall had been the state runner-up in D3 to the Dundee Vikings in three of the past four seasons.
A win over Yale Saturday would make this the most successful team season in Lakewood history. Despite all the successes, the Lakewood wrestlers have never reached the state championship match.
