Devin Pommerenke claims second straight state title with 118th consecutive win

by Angie Asam, Staff Writer

Doing what he does best, pinning his opponents, Rogers City junior Devin Pommerenke (D-Pom) pinned his way through the individual state finals to win his second consecutive state championship at 285 pounds. ?Devin pinned his way through the tournament. It wasn?t without some action by his opponents but Devin proved to be the better wrestler in all four of his matches, by far. Devin took care of business like I figured he would, he is just on a mission. The sky?s the limit for his future accomplishments, hopefully including another state title,? said coach Pat Lamb.

D-Pom pinned Dylan Snyder of Ithaca in 44 seconds in round one. In the quarterfinals he pinned Hudson?s Zach Rieger in 47 seconds to advance to the semifinals. Up against Cody McClellan of Quincy, D-pom recorded a pin in 1:18 to advance to the finals. In his finals match against Dylan Neff of Manchester D-pom would work to get Neff on his back late in the first period but could not record the fall. A frustrated Huron got up at the referee?s whistle and waited to see who would have choice to begin the second period. Neff won the toss and selected top in hopes he could hold D-pom down and tire him out.

That would not be the case however as Devin would quickly turn the tide to score on Neff. Building his lead to 12-2 D-pom chose top in the third period and turned Neff for the pin at the 4:37 mark to complete his perfect season. Neff tried to fight off all of Devin?s moves as he gave him three points for stalling, and he probably would have been tapped for stalling again, forfeiting the match, if Devin wouldn?t have recorded the pin early in the third period.

Finishing with a perfect 59-0 record, the same record he recorded a year ago, and wrestling four matches, spending a grand total of 7:26 on the mat all to have his arm raised and become only the second Rogers City Huron wrestler to become a two-time state champion (Dylan Centala (130) 2005-06). Pommerenke has won 118 consecutive matches since the end of his freshman year, and now has 171 career victories (171-11), ninth on the all-time career wins list as a junior. Pommerenke will need 49 victories in his senior season to tie Centala?s record for career wins.

Pommerenke will return for his senior season with the chance to do something no other Huron wrestler has ever done, become a three-time state champion. ?It feels great to be a two-time champ. That one relieved a lot of pressure. Anybody who doubted that I couldn?t come back and do it again cannot doubt me anymore. I came back with another pin in the finals to pin my way through the tournament so I feel a little accomplished by that. I hate giving up takedowns and I gave up two in this tournament. Before that I hadn?t been taken down since my freshman year, that kind of upsets me, but I was able to earn the win and the pin,? said Pommerenke in an interview following his finals match.

As a returning champion Devin had the honor of being at the front of the pack for the grand march both on Thursday with all the state qualifiers and on Saturday for the state medalists. For the state medalist grand march Pommerenke walked along with Colin Zeerip, Hesperia senior who became a three-time champion, and St. John?s sophomore Taylor Massa who is undefeated in his high school career and a two-time state champion.

Devin didn?t wear his orange and black for that march as he paid respect to the father of two wrestlers he knows. Craig Schaner, the father of former state champion Seth Schaner who now wrestles at Eastern Michigan University and Big Rapids senior Garrett Schaner who will be going to Stanford to wrestle next year, passed away a week before the state tournament in a tragic car accident. Garrett was still at the state tournament as he competed at 145 pound in Division III and placed third. In support of their wrestling brothers many of the young men vying for state titles wore shirts saying ?Doin? it for Papa Schaner? on the front and ?See you in the finals? on the back.

?All of us guys that know Garrett and Seth we really felt for them. I don?t know what it would be like to lose one of my parents. So we had the shirts and when I taped up my shoes for the finals on Saturday night I wrote Seth on my right leg and Garrett on my left leg in sharpie. I went out there and I did it for them. I didn?t know their dad personally, but I know both of them and they are great people. I feel for them, hard,? said Devin. FRESHMAN EVAN LAMB was the only other Huron to place as he finished sixth in the state at 125 pounds. After losing to Laith Francis of Lutheran Westland 7-1, Lamb was forced to fight through the losers bracket.

Lamb would record a 5-3 overtime victory over Skyler Schoff of Decatur and a 6-4 overtime victory over Frank Stepknowski of Reading, two wins that aged his father and coach by a few years before defeating Henry McKeown of Olivet 7-2 to get into the medal round. A 8-7 loss to Dan Efting of Bangor put Lamb in the match for fifth place where he fell 5-2 to Zachary Holmes of Burton Bendle to place sixth.

?Evan losing his first match and coming back and winning three straight to get into the match for fifth, he wrestled very well and got on a roll. He really wrestled total matches from there on out. The thing about Evan, thinking back on his year, is he has only given up six back points all season and was not pinned this year, for a freshman that is just unbelievable. I thought he did phenomenal for a freshman at the state meet,? said coach Lamb. Lamb finished the season with a record of 49-12.

SOPHOMORE JOEY SOBECK (112) went 1-2 at the state meet to finish his season 44-15. Sobeck defeated Drew Richard of Webberville 5-3 in rou

nd one before falling to Ryan Abrigo of Manchester 10-2 and Cory Wollin of Bangor 2-1 to end his season. ?Joey wrestled extremely well. In the match he lost 2-1 there was several times he had his opponent on his back, it just happened out of bounds every time. He wrestled tough and was in that match the whole way,? said coach Lamb.

FRESHMAN CALEB POMMERENKE (189) ran into some tough competition as he fell to Jordan Higgins of Mendon in 2:43 in round one, Higgins would go on to finish second and then Mick Schwab of Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary 6-2. Caleb finished the season with a record of 35-17.

?What Caleb was able to accomplish as a freshman is just phenomenal. Moving up for the team the way he did and kind of sacrificing some individual accomplishments is something that certainly hasn?t gone unnoticed by the coaching staff,? said coach Lamb.

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