In a battle of wrestling powerhouses, the Hartland High School wrestling team won a division championship Wednesday night by defeating Brighton 32-24 at Hartland High School.

“All week we were talking to kids about saving points, doing their job, telling them what was coming – and it was a lot of fun," said Hartland head coach Todd Cheney. "Only a couple of times did we not do what we talked about doing, meaning that they hit us in a move that we knew was coming, but aside from that, what a team effort.”

With Hartland up 26-21, senior Keith Boldt (119) had to win to determine whether Hartland could pull off the victory. Boldt did more than win – he pinned Brighton’s Daniel Koenig in five minutes, 18 seconds.

“I gotta win, I gotta win. My team needs me,” Boldt said was running through his head before his match. “I went out there, started studying the kid, and once I figured out he fell weakness to a few moves, took my advantages, and got the fall for my team.”

Said Cheney: “We got the fall there at 12 with Eicher, and that was crazy.  From that point, I thought we were going to win because I thought Keith (Boldt) was going to win for sure. But then Keith kept coming; he wasn’t satisfied with just winning.”

Out of 14 matches, Brighton and Hartland split down the middle, both teams winning seven matches each. The difference was, however, that Hartland pinned three opponents, while Brighton had none.

“Nobody got pinned,” Cheney said. “And that’s why we won.”

Although Brighton head coach Sam Amine is disappointed with the loss, the team is keeping its head up as the season continues.

“I think we worked very hard, and I thought this was going to be our year,” he said.  “We split seven and seven, and the difference of the matches were that they got more pins than we did.

“It was a heck of a dual with two hard-nosed teams battling at each other.  You have two good programs that are just giving it their all to be victorious and win the league.  The nice thing is it wasn’t the state finals, it was just a league championship, so we possibly have the opportunity of wrestling them again.”

Hartland is now 23-2 overall and 5-0 in the West Division of the Kensington Lakes Activities Association. Brighton is 37-1 and 4-1.

The Eagles will head to Portage Central this Saturday beginning at 9 a.m., while the Bulldogs head to Mason for the Mason Bulldogs Classic beginning at 10 a.m.