D1 football recruit’s wrestling revival helps cap DCC’s state title 3-peat

KALAMAZOO, MI –– With a pair of damaged ankles and football constantly calling his name, Benny Eziuka was on the brink of hanging up his headgear and singlet for good.

The gridiron was occupying a larger share of his life by the day, becoming his clear-cut future.

But winning state titles? That never gets old.

After battling through a series of ankle injuries, dropping more than 30 pounds and losing a family member, Eziuka rallied back to emphatically stamp Detroit Catholic Central’s third consecutive Division 1 team wrestling state championship with a swift pin on Saturday at Wings Event Center in Kalamazoo.

The 6-foot-3, 285-pound fleet-footed junior needed just 38 seconds to capture the exclamation point to the Shamrocks’ 18th team state championship –– the culmination to DCC’s eventual 50-18 victory over Davison.

“This is what I came back for, to be in this match with my team,” said Eziuka, who threw three fingers to the sky after his pin, signaling the Shamrocks’ three-peat. “Throwing the three-peat up, it’s what it’s all about. Coming back to win a state championship after a tough year, we took some tough losses and everyone was doubting us. But to assert our dominance today, it just shows how much this team has improved.”

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Eziuka’s pinfall was part of a match-sealing 24-0 Shamrock run to end Saturday’s final, which included five straight victories and back-to-back falls from the three-star football recruit and 106-pound sophomore Richard Mogle.

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Caden Krueger, a fourth-ranked 175-pounder, kicked off DCC’s run with a 19-5 major decision win, while Lee Krueger, the top-ranked 190-pounder, earned a 7-3 decision. Two-time defending state champ Connor Bercume (215) added a technical fall, setting up Eziuka’s shining moment.

A moment that almost never happened.

“He was banged up coming out of football and was in the midst of some big visits for football,” longtime Catholic Central head coach Mitch Hancock said. “But he sat down with me and said ‘coach, I want to help this team.’ With his ankle condition and recruiting, he wouldn’t be ready until January, but our team was on board with it and kudos to him for coming back to our program.

“He trains really hard and he’s just a specimen out there. He’s not a small boy. He’s got fast feet, and he’s going to be one heck of a college football player.”

After earning an all-state seventh-place finish at last year’s individual state finals, Eziuka’s journey back to the mat was anything but a cake walk. He weighed over 300 pounds at the start of the year, along with his nagging injuries, but the Shamrocks’ wrestling program meant to much to turn away, he said.

“Wrestling’s a hard sport and I just didn’t know if I was going to be able to go through all of that and still keep up with the football training,” Eziuka said. “But my teammates and my coaches have always been there for me, watching me develop and always picking my head up.

“Even earlier today when I got pinned, they didn’t shake their confidence in me at all. I was able to come out here and help them win.”

The Division 1 three-star offensive lineman is rapidly ascending recruit, boasting over 14 Division-I offers including Penn State, Kentucky, Cincinnati, Stanford, West Virginia and a slew of Mid-American Conference schools.

But Eziuka’s football prowess couldn’t have been done without wrestling.

“Wrestling’s really helped me with football in building my confidence especially in one-on-one matchups,” Eziuka said. “It just helps you mentally be able to impose your will and show that mental and physical toughness. It’s not easy, and it’s not for everyone but once you get on the other side, you’re a different person.

“It just helps you in every facet of life and to have that discipline. That’s why the most successful people in the world, they go through this and apply it to life. It’s really helped me a lot.”

Bercume, a Harvard commit, believes Eziuka could’ve very easily thrown in the towel on wrestling years ago to focus on football. The fact that he didn’t means a lot to the program, he said.

“It means a lot to us that he came back because he didn’t have to – he’s probably going to play in the NFL one day,” Bercume said. “He didn’t need to come back but he did it because he wanted to help us win. That just really speaks truthfully to the wrestling program as a whole, it’s special and it meant that much to him that he wanted to come back and be a part of it.”

Eziuka talents might best be known for protecting a quarterback or clearing a running lane, but his days in a wrestling uniform aren’t done just yet.

And neither are the wins.

“My freshman year was tough and I lost a lot, but with every year, I’ve started to get better and gain confidence,” Eziuka said. “This year, I really had a lot of confidence in myself and once I continued to put in the work, I saw myself get dominant in matches, then it started to become fun. You miss it when it’s gone, and it’s all rewarding in the end.”