swimming

A few weeks back I did a non-revenue sports piece looking at the fall disciplines, how Michigan's teams fared and who the most decorated athletes in the various sports were. Today we're doing the same, except for the winter sports. A future spring sports edition will be coming in the future and it will be longer than this one, as there are only five sports to cover today: men's and women's swim/dive, men's and women's gymnastics, and wrestling. I've written up summaries for both swim and dives as well as wrestling, while I've enlisted the help of MGoBlog gymnastics correspondent BiSB to cover those two, since he knows a hell of a lot more about it than me. 

Wrestling

Michigan Wrestling capped off a solid season at the NCAA Championships back in mid-March, unable to secure a second-consecutive B1G Tournament title, but there's no shame when you compete in a conference as difficult as the B1G. The team went 11-4 in their head-to-head matches, 5-3 in the conference which was tied for fifth with Minnesota and Northwestern. Penn State were kings of the league this year, a perfect 8-0 in conference and winning the national championship. Along the way, the Nittany Lions won the B1G Tournament, which was held at Crisler Center in Ann Arbor this year, where the Wolverines placed fifth. In a sign of the B1G's dominance, Michigan finished sixth in the national championships in Tulsa, behind PSU, Iowa, Cornell, OSU, and Missouri. They were unable to match last season's second-place national finish, but even taking sixth is a sign of the program's strength all the same, not to mention the individual accolades the season produced, which give Wolverine wrestling fans lots to be proud of. 

Speaking of those individual accolades, let's talk about Mason Parris. The fifth-year senior became Michigan's 24th individual national champion when he secured the NCAA heavyweight title in Tulsa and the program's first ever winner of the Dan Hodge Trophy, awarded to America's best collegiate wrestler. Parris' national title capped off an immaculate 33-0 season, the capstone to what was already an illustrious collegiate career. Parris began back in 2018-19 as a freshman, 7th in the B1G that season in the heavyweight class, qualifying for the NCAAs. He was already a captain by his sophomore season in 2019-20 and took 2nd in the B1G, before the year ended early due to COVID.

[UMich Athletics]

2020-21 was Parris' first NCAA All-American campaign, where he was the national runner-up for the heavyweight title, but his senior season was marred by injury in the back-half, robbing him of the chance to win it all. He was still named an All-American again, but Parris wanted to return to school to finally take the national title. He got the clean bill of health necessary and dominated this entire season, culminating in the championship match against Penn State's Greg Kerkvliet, which Parris won to take the title. Word is that this may not be the last we see of Parris: in an interview with Rivals' Josh Henschke, Parris revealed that he plans to train for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris (would be fun for puns!) and the Michigan Daily reported after the championships that Parris will stay in Ann Arbor over the summer to continue training for the Olympics. Considering that Parris was the runner-up at the NCAAs in 2021 to a future Olympic gold medalist in the Tokyo games (Gable Steveson), making Team USA for Paris seems attainable. 

Beyond the greatness of Parris, Michigan had two more All-Americans at the NCAAs. Cameron Amine took fourth in the 165 lb. weight class, earning All-America honors, which is the third time he's earned that distinction in his collegiate wrestling career. Will Lewan was seventh in the 157 lb. class, also his third All-America honor. Lewan, like Parris, is a fifth-year senior who will depart the program, but Amine has two more years eligibility remaining with his COVID-shirt and a red-shirt applying. Sean Bormet leads a strong program, competing in the toughest conference in college wrestling, and though some key wrestlers will be graduating, there is every reason to believe that Michigan will remain competitive in the years to come. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Aquatics and gymnastics]