Rojas becomes 3rd Michigan youth to ever win Trinity Award

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When Mike Rojas, father of 2014 World of Wrestling Trinity Award Winner, Manuel “Manny,” Rojas saw his son win his second Tulsa National Title of the 2014 season, all he could think about was, “We’re heading to Reno.”

The Reno World Championships is the final leg in the coveted Trinity Award given to anyone youth wrestler who can win the World of Wrestling’s Tulsa  Kickoff, Suplay Tulsa Nationals, and Reno Worlds National Tournament.

Many of Michigan's elite youth studs have made the trips West hunting those elusive World of Wrestling. Eagle Trophies. Rojas joins three other Michigan natives who have previously won the Trinity Award: Freddie Rodriguez, Mark Hall, and Ben Whitford were all Trinity Award Winners while coming up through the youth ranks and later went on to win multiple national titles at the high school level.

Rojas lives in Bay City, but trains and competes for former NCAA Champion Paul Donahoe at his Flint area training center. Davison is no stranger to pumping out world class talent and the long term effects of Coach Roy Hall’s legendary teams of the 2000’s are still on disply as Brent Metcalf, Jon Reader, and Paul Donahoe are continuing to flourish on the wrestling scene.   Donahoe's "Team Donahoe" has now won two national level team titles - at the Tulsa Nationals and the Folkstyle Nationals in Iowa.

Rojas’ Trinity Award run started at the Tulsa Kickoff Tournament where he pinned everyone he faced and was one pin short of the outstanding wrestler award in the 10U division.

He later returned to Tulsa with one goal in mind: Win! He did not have the same path to the title as he did at the Kickoff Classic, as he had to come from behind in his quarterfinal and semi-final matches to reach the finals, including a huge fall over California's George Ruiz that came while training 4-1.

“He is just focused every time he competes.” says Mike Rojas.  

Rojas scored a big win for himself and Team Donahoe in the Tulsa National finals, as he needed to win to secure the team title for Team Donahoe.  In the bout, Rojas gave up the first takedown to Martin Cosgrove of New Jersey, but stormed back with 7 unanswered points to take a 7-3 lead and ultimately won the match in dominant fashion, 10-3.

“I respect them (my opponents) for stepping on the mat with me, but they are going to take a loss." says Rojas with confidence.

Rojas went into the Reno Worlds last month as the number one seed on his chart and wrestled like it, firing off pins all the way to the semi-finals where he would have a Tulsa National re-match Ruiz of California.

“It looked like they had ten coaches in his (Ruiz's) corner.”  said Mike Rojas who recalled this intense match.

This time around, Rojas did not need a heroic headlock to win as he earned a 3rd period stalling point and escape to break a scoreless tie and win 2-0.  He then capped things off with a 9-4 finals win to claim the Reno title and secure the Trinity Award.

Outside of the room, Rojas also trains as much as he can with Davison's 3x State Champ, Lincoln Olson.

“Training with Lincoln gives Manny so much confidence because all of the Donahoe kids look up to Lincoln." said Mike Rojas, who makes a 3 hour drive from Bay City three days a week to give his son the best coaching and training partners.  

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