Clare wrestlers found great individual success this winter

By BEN MURPHY

Cleaver Sports Writer

When it came to wins and losses in duals, the Clare wrestling team wasn’t able to win a whole lot of matches this winter. The Pioneers did pick up three victories in duals, and they actually won a whole bunch of matches along the way.

“With such a small team this year, we didn't win a lot of dual meets, but we did have three duals in particular, that of the 17 total actual matches, we won 16 of them,” head coach Dennis Doyle said. “Individually, we made incredible strides and had a lot of growth from the beginning of the season to the end.  We are very young and this team was very close and bought into what we do and many of them ended up doing a lot better than expected.  One of the brightest spots for me was that all of our wrestlers continued to practice even after their season ended at districts or regionals.”

The Pioneers did have a wealth of success in the individual post-season tournaments. Just to highlight a few, they had five regional qualifiers and three state qualifiers.

“Ann Marie Green made her fourth appearance at Ford Field (at the state finals) and placed for a fourth time as well,” Doyle said. “She finished with a 27-2 record finishing in second.  Kyle McGraw and Chris Green made their first trip to the state tournament and although they both fell short of placing, they had great seasons. We are very happy with how this season ended up and with the development of all the wrestlers.  The goal and focus was growth, development, buy in and growing closer as a team and I believe we accomplished that.”

The good news is that the Pioneers only graduate one senior from this year’s team. The bad news is that senior is Ann Marie Green.

“She will be greatly missed,” Doyle said. “Ann Marie, from a stats standpoint was incredible for four years, but her greatest impact was as a teammate, leader, motivator and mentor.  She is a great role model for all female athletes and will be involved in wrestling for years to come.”

The Pioneers will be on the youthful side again next winter, but if they continue to grind it out with hard work, the program should only continue to get better.

“We will return zero juniors next year but are fortunate enough to have 10 returning freshmen and sophomores who accomplished a great deal this year,” Doyle said. “I am confident they will set the tone for a strong freshmen group coming in.  I think they will gel together very well and I am looking forward to getting started working with them in the offseason.”