Rochester Adams found a way to get over the hump Wednesday night \u2013 and with the that the Highlanders snapped a 27-year streak in the process.<\/p>\n
Adams edged Romeo 37-35 in a classic Division 1 regional semifinals match at Dearborn Fordson, then came back to thump host Fordson 59-20 to claim the school\u2019s first regional championship since 1999, back when the Highlanders were a state powerhouse program.\n<\/p>\n
The Highlanders have always remained competitive but have often been knocked out by the likes of Oxford, Clarkston, Hartland, Romeo, Macomb Dakota and a few others, including several times in the regional semifinals or regional finals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the first time in 27 years that the Rochester Adams wrestling program has made the state tournament,\u201d beamed Adams coach Mike Holtz. \u201cI was a junior in high school (1999) when we last made the tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams had to get past a quality Romeo squad that has made several trips out to Battle Creek, Mt. Pleasant or Kalamazoo since Adams\u2019 last trip, including last season when the Bulldogs were regional team champs.<\/p>\n
Adams had to win several swing matches to get by Romeo before defeating Fordson in an anticlimactic regionals finals match. Fordson reached the regional finals with a 46-35 victory over Berkley in the other semifinals meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew they were going to best us up down low some, but we weathered the storm and saved team points at 106, 120, 138, and at 157. Without these weights fighting for every inch the guys up top wouldn\u2019t have had the chance to do what they did,\u201d offered Holtz. \u201cAfter 157 we essentially had to win four of the last five \u2013 with three of them being by pin and the last by major decision or better. We ended up with pins at 165, 175, 215 and at 285 we ended up with the tech fall to complete the comeback and essentially punch our ticket to the state tournament.\u201d<\/p>\n
Veteran Romeo coach James Cali felt that the regional semifinals match would be crucial and it had the makings of being a classic between two top-15 teams. His Bulldogs just came up agonizingly short in seeing his team\u2019s dual meet season come to and end with a 28-11 overall record.<\/p>\n
Romeo still has 10 wrestlers competing Saturday in the MHSAA Division 1 Individual Regional at Warren Cousino.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great match and we knew it would be. We just came up a little short,\u201d said Romeo\u2019s Cali, who has been on both ends of the stick in classic regional matches as a coach with over 30 years of experience. \u201cThere was a couple of swing matches that could have gone either way. Adams is a solid program and we\u2019ve wrestled them over the years. They found a way to win a couple of those close matches and that was the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Adams (15-4), the Highlanders must wait until Feb. 22 to find out their fate when the MHSAA releases the top eight seedings and the state quarterfinals pairings for the upcoming team state tournament. That will take place Feb. 27-28 at Wings Arena in Kalamazoo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very proud of the boys. They answered the bell tonight,\u201d said Holtz. \u201cIt\u2019s something special that this group of young men will be able to carry with them for the rest of their lives and do so with pride.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch a great night for the entire program \u2013 wrestlers, coaches and the parents,\u201d continued Holtz. \u201cWe are very proud of them and I couldn\u2019t be more grateful to be entrusted by the parents and administration of Rochester Adams to lead the program. A program that means the world to me and one where I embrace the obligation and responsibility that comes with leading the program and do so in such a manner in which my coach (Pat Milkovich),\u00a0family and the entire Rochester Adams community would be proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
ROCHESTER ADAMS 37, ROMEO 35<\/p>\n
106: Aaron Moskwa (RO) tech. fall Keaton Cottone 20-3; 113: Nathan Pugh (RO) p. Anrav Canjan 0:55; 120: Nico Adamo (RO) maj. dec. Bryson Moskwa 16-3; 126: JD Quinlan (RA) p. Seamus Murphy 1:39; 132: Will Eastion (RA) d. Eric Miller 11-4; 138: Valentino Adamo (RO) p. Joey Zobrest 4:00; 144: Colton Shurda (RO) p. Christian Steffens 3:45; 150: Deacon Morgan (RA) p. Anthony Yuquilima 4:50; 157: Owen Perry (RO) d. Dom Beccari 7-0; 165: Dede Thomas (RA) p. Miles Schodowski 0:44; 175: Kailen Mellay (RA) p. Nolan Kammer 0:44; 190: Tommy Jaynes (RO) p. Will Anderson 1:26; 215: Jackson Harris (RA) p. Rashaad Hardman 3:06; 285: Max Vostryakov (RA) p. Alex Murray 4:45.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rochester Adams found a way to get over the hump Wednesday night \u2013 and with the that the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2044,795,143,904,145,144,3414,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-186260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-high-school-sports","9":"tag-michigan","10":"tag-oakland","11":"tag-oakland-county","12":"tag-oakland-headlines","13":"tag-oakland-news","14":"tag-rochester-hills","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}