Todd Cheney Quotations

We didn't want to risk anything with the knee. He tore it at Michigan Duals and he's already back and he beat a kid in the quarterfinals that took fourth in state last year. He looked really good.

He lost 50 pounds. He's worked really hard to get down. There wasn't an opening where he was so he had to cut the weight to get into the starting lineup.

He's awesome. He works hard. He's great on his feet. He's a class individual. He does well in school. He's nice to people. He's the full package. He's great kid. He's a cover boy and it's well deserved. Here's a sophomore that is first and second in the state so far, wow.

The ranking doesn't mean a whole lot to our guys. We've finished second in the state to Davison the last two years, so we know rankings don't mean a whole lot if you don't get it done at states.

He was a captain and the type of kid you wanted to have as the face of your program.

Our kids were better prepared, we had a goal in mind and we knocked 'em off. We had a great day, and sometimes, it's too bad a day in December cannot carry over into March.

Our kids walk around in the community and in grocery stores and people see them with a (wrestling) coat on and tell them congratulations.

Our ultimate goal is to win the state championship. Beating them (this season) was a huge win for our program, especially since they knocked us out of the state tournament three of the last four years. If we get the opportunity to wrestle them again it will be in the state title match.

Our regional was so tough. We had a 103-pounder who took seventh in state and another state qualifier from a year ago who did not win a match. All things considered we did okay.

That was a swing match for our team, because it really turned the momentum.

When you wrestle a team so many times it gets closer and closer, but that didn't happen today. The kids wrestled great and we were able to rotate kids in. It feels great. It's a little different going in as a favorite. We have to take it one step at a time, two down five to go.

Things are going well for us. The kids are calling themselves the 'Five-Week Freaks,' knowing they have to do everything perfect behave, do their school work, eat right and be focused while wrestling. They are a great group to work with. They're having a lot of fun.

It was a little disappointing for us because we felt we could get a couple more. You look at it now and 30 seconds of wrestling took us from 11 qualifying to eight. We had our opportunities and the eight that qualified wrestled phenomenal. They had to because our regional had six of the top 10 teams in the state. The region was loaded.

It was absolutely amazing. It was one of the best days I've seen in the Hartland program's history. It was strange. We just kept winning and no one wanted to say anything about it. It was like a bowler throwing a 300 game. You don't want to say anything about it. No one even talked about it.

This is a real self-motivated group. They know how to behave in the classroom and on and off the mat. Having a bunch of kids like that makes my job a lot easier.

They've been wrestling since they were 6 and 7.

A lot of times as coaches we do a best-case scenario and a worst-case scenario and we listed as coaches the best we could do is get 12 and we thought 13 was stretching it. The kids did outstanding.

They're all climbing the ladder (toward a state championship).

It was incredible. We wrestled outstanding. We broke the record for most points, most champs, most finalists and most placers. We had 14 placers. You can't do better than that. It was amazing.

It's tough. We really thought we had a shot at them this year and we just had a great season. We wrestled hard and the kids put everything they had into it. You can't ask for more than that.