Girls Wrestling finishes as first ever state runner-up
From Mat Maids to State Runner-Up, It’s been a journey for girls wrestling at Lowell. Photo provided by Lowell Girls Wrestling.
Justin Scott - Sports Reporter
Jscott@mihomepaper.com
1 April 2025
Last Saturday, amidst the excitement of having crowned individual state champions, Grand Haven was awarded the first ever girls team state championship trophy by the Michigan High School Athletic Association.
A moment of history. Girls sports broke through in the 1970’s in Michigan high schools after a near 50 year break. Girls played basketball and tennis frequently at LHS from the 1900’s until World War II broke out. Now 50 years after girls sports returned in the 70’s, the sport of girls wrestling is blossoming not just at LHS, but in the state of Michigan. It’s also blossoming in Lowell, because also getting a trophy, was the state runner-ups, small in size, but packing quite the punch, Lowell. A team of just five, Lowell sent four to compete in the postseason, three of which placed at state including state champion Tatianna Castillo and state runner-up Veronica Tapia.
“This team just laid down the foundation for other girls in the community to have an opportunity to wrestle. To be cemented in the history books as runner-ups feels amazing. Knowing that this has the possibility to grow into something incredible for the future for Lowell High School, Coach Jeffrey Schildroth told the Ledger.
Schildroth was an assistant under Coach Dave Strejc during Lowell’s first state championship run in 2002. In recent years, you may recognize “DJ Jeffrey Schildroth”, the DJ for the MHSAA Wrestling state finals. Schildroth coached alongside Josh Cooper with the girls program this year.
Girls participation in wrestling has come a long way over the decades, while girls haven’t always wrestled at LHS, there has been plenty of interest.
Today the girls a part of the wrestling team, those not wrestling, are called managers. They help with everything from social media to helping with organization of events, live-scoring through TrackWrestling, and assisting coaches.
In the 1970’s it was a completely different role. Managers were often junior high schoolers hand selected by Coach Rivers involved with every aspect of the team. These were always younger male wrestlers. Similar to what a ball boy is for football often.
“Those managers were an essential part of the team,” Ron Rottier, a former Lowell Wrestling manager himself, told the Ledger. They were very different from "Mat Maids", a term used to describe a specific group of Lowell Wrestling supporters in the 1970's particularly.
Calli Rottier helping with team organization before the state championship match in 2025. Photo by Justin Scott, Lowell Ledger
Mat maids were essentially wrestling super fans. You can see in old yearbooks, these females who followed the team would often wear “mat maid” shirts and many were sisters of wrestlers or dating one of the wrestlers. As the world evolved from the 70’s through to the 90’s girls began to take the role of managers we are more familiar with today, though the manager role was much different back then.
One family with tremendous involvement over decades with Lowell wrestling are the Rottiers. The number who have been involved as wrestlers or managers over the decades is in the double digits.
“I became involved as a mat minder in 1991,” Holly (Bauman) Rottier told the Ledger. Holly is married to Lowell Wrestling alumnus Mike Rottier who just coached his final match at Hudsonville after 18 years at the helm, and 25 at the program overall.
“At the time there were a couple upperclassmen girls that helped out. They mostly ran the stats of each match to the head table so brackets could be updated, made sure brackets/weight charts were up to date, and if trained the matminders would help with scoring of duals. My junior and senior year (92-94) the group of us really worked hard to become more actively involved. While still making locker posters before big conference duals and meets and passing out little goodie bags to all the wrestlers, we also were very active in doing all the stats for Coach Rivers,” added Rottier whose sons wrestled at Hudsonville under Mike.
Bob Rottier, Mike’s father, was a first generation wrestler. His brother briefly wrestled, but Bob was a varsity wrestler all 4 years for Lowell. Bob recently passed away in January.
Analize Tapia high fives Coach Jeffrey Schildroth on the way to a team state-runner-up finish. Photo by Justin Scott, Lowell Ledger
Three of Bob’s sons, Dave, Mike, and Dan were all 4 year varsity wrestlers, their sister Katie was a matminder all four years she was in high school. Bob and his wife Mary did the video recording for the team while their boys were on the team, so 12 years dedicated to doing video taping for Lowell wrestling. Three of Bob’s granddaughters, Calli Rottier, Andi Rottier, and Rae-Lynn Rottier, were managers for the wrestling team this past season. All three are current LHS students.
While the world of wrestling has changed over the years from pencil and paper to dedicated software like Trackwrestling and video coverage, one thing hasn’t changed. An active presence of females in the wrestling room. The transition from “mat maids” to “mat minders” to the “managers” we know today. In addition, we have the wrestlers themselves. A trophy at LHS showcasing Lowell Wrestling, the first ever girls runner-up in the state.
“This team is special and the foundation for every girl wrestler in the future of Lowell. I'm blessed to be able to coach again with this historic team. RJ really has put together an incredible program. I'm just a small piece of the puzzle that makes everything come together,” Schildroth added.
Lowell had five girls on the team; Angelica Acosta, Veronica Tapia, Tatianna Castillo, Jaeda Drown, and Analize Tapia.
“We have had females in the room for four years now. Four years ago Coach Ebrom and I started with one girl in the postseason and she took eighth. That was the first girls state meet that we participated in and that was sponsored by the MWA I believe. The year after that was when Veronica was a freshman. She ended up being our only girl in the postseason that year but that was at Ford Field for the first time. Last year we added Analize and Angelica and by the time that season ended, we realized we needed to put more resources into the girls program. RJ asked me to focus most of my energy on the girls and he brought on Coach Schildroth,” Coach Josh Cooper said.
“Jeff had experience coaching girls in the past and has been around wrestling most of his life. We worked together to build a full schedule for the girls. We traveled from Montague to St. Joe, to Midland. We tried to see as many different girls as we could to best prepare our team for the postseason and I think that paid off. Those tournaments helped us decide what weight each girl would be best at in the postseason. The girls did their part and we got a runner-up trophy. It was a great year,” Cooper added.
The format for crowning the girls state champion was similar to how MHSAA team champions were awarded prior to 1987-1988 and not far from how the NCAA awards team championships. The NCAA does not use a team dual format, though many would prefer to see one. For the MHSAA girls, until teams are filled it is likely the individual format will be maintained.
“The girls wrestling movement has inspired me to get back into coaching. I feel very honored to have been given this chance to be a part of this team and community. Being second is great. But more importantly to me we are given kids an opportunity to be a part of something special. These girls were so humble and happy to just be a part of the state tournament. The finalist trophy was just a really cool bonus. Having the team get a banner and be on the famous road sign is great exposure for other girls growing up in the community to see that they can wrestle as well,” Coach Schildroth concluded.
