Manchester Wrestling Sends Fourteen to Regionals, Eight Win Individual​ District Titles

By: Seth Kinker, skinker@thesuntimesnews.com

The Manchester Flying Dutchmen Wrestling team hosted individual districts on Feb. 9 at Manchester High School. 

Bath, Burton Bendle, Burton Bentley, Dansville, East Jackson, Flint Beecher, Flint Hamady, Grass Lake, Jackson Lumen Christi, Laingsburg, Napoleon, Springport, Vandercook Lake, and Webberville were all at the high school on Saturday as the Dutchmen sent fourteen wrestlers to individual regionals while having eight win individual district titles.

“Great day,” said Manchester head coach Steve Vlcek after the award presentations. “Eight champs, got fourteen out, you can’t ask for much better than that. They wrestled at a great level today.” 

“We sort of looked at it as that’s what we need to do to win on Wednesday, wrestle at that kind of level,” added Vlcek who’s team must get past Springport in team regionals. “We definitely don’t want to take Springport lightly, but we had a great showing. Hopefully we can continue that. That’s the big thing, we don’t want to peak now, we have a lot of work to do.” 

Freshman Jake Bunn (103), junior Drew Gebhardt (119), junior Jacob Shelby  (130), senior Grant Tungate (135), junior Jacob Kurgin (145), junior Nick Phillips (160), junior Collin McCaffrey (171), and junior Simon Lato (Heavyweight) all won their district titles to advance for a chance to make it to States. 

Freshman Jared Bunn (103), sophomore Adam Pringle (130), senior Josh Bunn (140), senior Max Wagner (152), junior Derek Guenther (189), and junior Travis Withrow (215) are the other wrestlers heading to individual regionals with their placings on Saturday.

The Dutchmen travel to Springport on Feb. 13 for team regionals with individual regionals taking place on Feb. 16. 

Video highlights to be added.