Peninsula senior Stolz caps off stellar season with state title

Chance Stolz was pacing back and forth near his mat in the Tacoma Dome, waiting for his match to start. The mat was clear, but a match at the adjacent mat, in a weight class below, wasn’t yet completed. Until it finished, Stolz’s 195-pound Class 3A title match wouldn’t be allowed to start.

The match went to overtime. Then to double overtime. Then triple overtime.

Onlookers probably assumed the Peninsula High School senior was going crazy. But a calm came over Stolz as he waited for his last chance at a state championship on Saturday night.

“It was kind of weird,” Stolz said. “I was thinking to myself, ‘This should be making me more nervous. The anticipation should be making more nervous. I bet everyone is thinking this is just killing me.’ But it was kind of nice; I just calmed down and relaxed. Everything before just went away. It gave me an extra minute or two to relax and go into my mode, zone everyone out and do what you gotta do.”

And then he went to work against Kennedy Catholic’s Bowen McConville. With brute force and determination, Stolz let out a scream at the end of the first round as he overpowered McConville for a takedown and two points.

“He wasn’t going to be denied on that takedown,” Peninsula coach Mark Nickels said. “He was not going to let that one go. He got in too deep that give that one up.”

After the first takedown, as is often the case with Stolz’s matches, he started rolling. In the second round, he earned a pin to become a state champion.

“I can’t describe it,” Stolz said breathlessly after the match. “It’s wonderful. I wish I could’ve won it last year. Losing in the semifinals (as a junior), it just pushes you. It shows you how close you are to being that state champ. It just pushes you through everything. Everything you do, you want to work your hardest at. I compete at everything. I want to be the best.”

Stolz ended the season with only one loss — a 5-2 decision against Tatsuya Fujii of the Japenese junior national team. He finished the season 41-1 and has compiled an 80-2 record over the past two seasons. Coming into the season, he was on a mission.

“He was very singularly driven,” Nickels said. “He wasn’t going to be happy with anything less than a state championship. What I’ve been proud of in his wrestling, he’s always been a strong kid. But he started putting the technique together. He was looking so much more mature this year than in previous years. There were a lot of times when he wasn’t really tested, but we made sure we found places where he was going to be. It made a difference.”

With the win, Stolz becomes the first state champion Nickels has coached. While he downplayed that significance earlier in the year, Nickels admitted it was special to coach a state champion.

“It does (mean something to me),” Nickels said. “I’ve had enough finals matches. It’s nice to come away and have him get to the end of his goal. It feels good. I’ve been on the other end of it too much, so this one’s a good one.”

Stolz credited his coaches for helping his success and development.

“Without them, I don’t think I would’ve been anywhere near this,” Stolz said. “They push you until you break and then they bring you back up. They teach you what you need to know. They understand each individual person as a wrestler. They target what you need to know to be successful and it matters to them as well.”

Elsewhere, Peninsula junior Michael Campigotto finished seventh in the 113-pound weight class.

“He had a good tournament,” Nickels said. “It wasn’t the tournament he was hoping for himself. He ended his tournament on a win. He got that seventh place, he took that sense of loss from the previous match and did something good with it. He’s putting everything together. We’re going to put him through the works in the summer and he’ll be a solid kid next year.”

For Gig Harbor High School, both sophomore John Bittinger (145) and senior Max Batanian (170) lost their first two matches on Friday.

This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 11:29 AM with the headline "Peninsula senior Stolz caps off stellar season with state title."