Leslie’s Tanner Craft recalls a fallen friend with the state title

Detroit – Leslie Senior Tanner Craft is the state champion with 285 pounds in division 4. left the mat in Ford Field on Saturday after the final game, with a black shirt with the name of a good friend; Max.

Max Fourman was a Craft’s in Football and Wrestling’s teammate who died in 2023. Craft and Fourman had talked about making the journey to the state together. Craft obtained his, with the name of his friend recorded on his shirt.

“He and I had fought the whole summer and told him that he was going to be a state champion twice,” Craft said. “Last year I failed in that promise, so I just lit a fire under me this year and I knew I had to do it.”

In the state finals of 2024, Craft set on the first round, but worked back to place in third place, obtaining a 3-2 decision about Tanner Shugars of Decatur in the fight of third place.

This year the crafts were determined. He lost only once in the regular season, then fought against the consolation support in the regional after a first round defeat there.

He arrived in Ford Field with the opportunity to fulfill his promise and in the process find a way to honor Fourman.

“Max was a great guy, a great friend,” Craft said. “Always happy, I would push you no matter what. No matter what you were happening, he was always there. He could be having the worst day of his life, but if you weren’t smiling, that was his biggest problem. The hardest worker he knew. He never yielded. Simply stinks, it’s not here to see it. “

Craft said that everything means to win a title for his friend and fallen teammate.

The Craft Title Saturday was against White Pigeon Chaz Underwood, which ended in a 3-1 decision.

He is the first state champion of Leslie since 2016, when Kanen Storr won the 145 -pound title in Division 3 in the Palace.

The Craft route to get to the final included three pins on Friday, one of which took only 14 seconds. That was not even his fastest pin in the month of February, since he has tied a state record for his weight class in the team’s districts with a four -second pin.

In the fight for Saturday, Underwood obtained in the mat in 39 seconds, but could never turn it into the pin.

The two fought for a second period without goals, and the third had no score until Craft was beaten with a stagnant penalty with remaining seven seconds. He could avoid a demolition in the restart and clung to victory.

Despite Craft’s inclination for the pins, he was able to go distance in the fight for the title, even dancing out of the path of one of the latest Underwood attacks.

“I trust my conditioning. Hard work, ”he said. “You just have to find something more bigger than fighting in you.”