Zeeland East Wrestling competed at the MHSAA Individual Regional Tournament in Allendale today.  From the six (6) Regional Qualifiers, East advanced three (3) to State with two (2) Regional Champions.  The top four finishers in each weight advance to the MHSAA Individual State Meet at Ford Field on March 1-2.  East was the only team except the reigning team State Champion Lowell to have more than one Champion on the day. 

 JJ Ledford at 113 was East’s first Regional Champion of the day starting out by forfeit to advance to the semifinals where he faced Jaxon Ramos of Allendale.  JJ defeated Jaxon 6-4 to advance to the finals against Braddock King of Lowell in a rematch of the District Championship.  Similar to last week, JJ defeated Braddock 7-3 to claim the Regional Title.

Parker Williams at 285 was East’s second Regional Champion pinning his way to his championship. Parker pinned Jordan Sholley of Greenville in 32 seconds in the quarterfinals and then Allessandro Fillmore of Holland in 2:14 in the semifinals.  The finals found Parker against the #2 ranked and previously undefeated (47-0) Dustin Warner of Sparta.  Parker controlled the finals match from the whistle and pinned Dustin at 1:25 to capture his Regional Title. 

 Gavin Drenten at 138 also pinned his way into the finals pinning Wyatt Jarka of Coopersville at 1:59 and then Keaton Klaasen of Cedar Springs at 1:11.  The finals saw a repeat of the Allendale Tournament earlier this year pitting Gavin versus Tee Ward of Fremont.  Unfortunately for Gavin, Tee gained a quick advantage that Gavin was not able to make up. Gavin lost to Tee, his first loss of the year, this time 13-5 with Gavin earning a second place. 

 Other East wrestlers had a good day as well but just could not get into the placing matches to advance.  Gabe Amid at 190 took the number one (1) seed to the third overtime eventually losing by 1 point.  Gabe then fell to Thomas Prins of Cedar Springs in the consolation bracket to end his day.  Anders Tibbs lost his first match to a previously undefeated Quinten Cassiday of Cedar Springs (Quinten ended up in second place today). Anders then defeated Conner Peterman of Greenville by pin at  3:32 before falling to Bryce Morrison of Hamilton in the consolation blood round.  And finally, Tommy Le at 106 came within only seconds of a State berth.  Tommy began the day defeating a number 1 seed Elijah Troost of Sparta 11-8 before falling to Lowell’s Cole Cichocki 15-5.  The consolation blood round saw Tommy versus a familiar opponent in Zeeland West’s Aiden Chavez. Tommy was leading Aiden most of the match but gave up a takedown to Aiden with less than 30 seconds.  Tommy was unable to escape in the remaining time and lost to Aiden 6-7 to end his day.