Five Hurons place at Northern Michigan Championships

by Angie Asam, Staff Writer

The Rogers City varsity wrestling team traveled to Gaylord Saturday for the Northern Michigan Championships and returned with five placers. The invitational featured 24 teams, Rogers City placed 10th.

Sophomore heavyweight Devin Pommerenke kept his undefeated season record alive going 3-0 on the day to take first place.

As the top seed in his weight class, Pommerenke had a bye in the first round before facing Jake Ceslick of Alpena. Pommerenke would win the match by pin at the 3:09 mark. Pommerenke would then pin Ethan Gerdes of Houghton Lake in just 49 seconds putting him in the finals against Brian Bliss of Gaylord.

In the finals Pommerenke would waste no time with the Gaylord senior pinning him in just 55 seconds to secure first place. Pommerenke?s record now stands at 42-0 on the season with 35 of those wins coming via the pin, the remaining seven won by void. ?Devin passed a big test in beating Bliss. I can?t say enough about the mental preparation he does,? said coach Pat Lamb.

Freshman Joey Sobeck (103) defeated Jerry Bergey of Grayling by pin in 1:22 to start off his day. In his second match of the day Sobeck would be pitted against Roscommon?s Dustin Noreyko. Sobeck would avenge an early season 3-2 loss to Noreyko by pinning him in 3:20.

Sobeck would advance to the finals to take on Justin Gehringer of Gaylord. Sobeck would fall short losing 6-0 to place second at the Championships.

?Joey avenging the loss against the young man from Roscommon in the semi-finals was a big lift. Joey wrestled well in the finals against a good wrestler,? said coach Lamb. Junior Ben Tulgestke (152) would go 2-3 on the day and place sixth. Sophomore Travis Fleis took eighth place at 112 pounds going 2-2 on the day. Junior Jacob Reisener (160) was 4-1 on the day with four pins and shared seventh place with another wrestle as a wrestler can only wrestle a maximum of five times in a day.

?I am very pleased with the way we wrestled on Saturday at Gaylord. Mike Pacella is really coming on strong at 189 pounds and having Ben Tulgestke take sixth at 152 pounds was a big boost,? said coach Lamb.

Other Huron wrestlers and their records for the day were Travis Lafferty (119) 0-2, Cameron Wilk (125) 1-2, Keegan Urban (130) 1-2, Greg Tulgestke (135) 1-2, Daniel Marx (140) 0-2 and Mike Pacella (189) 2-2.

?We are still getting pinned too much, but we are working on that

every day and gearing up for the post season. We still need to teach our kids how to win. We have leads late in matches and succumb to the pressure at times. We need to know how to handle the success,? said coach Lamb.

LAST WEDNESDAY the Hurons traveled to Rudyard for a Straits Area Conference quad meet where they faced Cheboygan and Onaway.

The Hurons made quick work of Cheboygan winning 60-10 and defeated Onaway 48-27. Double winners for the Hurons were Sobeck, Wilk, Urban, Greg Tulgestke, Ben Tulgestke, Marx, Pommerenke and Brandon Rickle. Fleis, Lafferty and Pacella were all 1-1 on the day.

The Hurons were back in action Wednesday in Cheboygan and will be at home February 11 against Gaylord and Alpena.