Huron wrestlers go 1-1 at Grayling meet
by Angie Asam, Staff Writer
The Rogers City Hurons? wrestling team was in Grayling last Wednesday for a quad meet. The Hurons faced Kingsley and Whittemore Prescott on the day. Against Kingsley the Hurons fell just short losing 39-33 in a tight match. The match looked like it could go either way but the Hurons were unable to get the wins in the close matches to take the dual. The Hurons were without Caleb Pommerenke (189) and Blaise Ryan (135). Blaise Ryan suffered a knee injury at the Marquette Challenge and will be out for the year.
?I think as a team we wrestled pretty flat against Kingsley. We just lost too many tight matches. You can?t expect to win a dual against a decent team when you lose tight matches. We did win one however with Travis Fleis who had a great match with his Kingsley opponent and persevered at the end to get the win. He wrestled very well,? said coach Pat Lamb.
Although he doesn?t like to lose any matches but without a couple of his big guns it was a battle. ?We need to figure out ways to pick up our teammates when they aren?t in the lineup and come up with some pins where we aren?t expecting to get them and we can?t afford to give up pins,? said coach Lamb who isn?t going to use excuses that there are guys out of the lineup but knows he has a much better team with a full lineup. The Hurons then battled back to defeat Whittemore Prescot
?I thought we wrestled pretty well against Whittemore. But we can?t be ahead in matches and end up getting pinned, that happened once, we have to avoid that at all costs. We were able to overcome it against Whittemore as they had four voids but in a tight match we have to find a way to win,? said coach Lamb. Double winners for the Hurons were Fleis (125), Evan Lamb (130), Keegan Urban (140) and Devin Pommerenke (285). Adam Pieczynski (189), Jared LaFleche (171), Greg Tulgestke (152), Daniel Marx (145), Jack Ryan (119) and Joe Sobeck (112) were all 1-1 on the day.
Wednesday (after press time) the Hurons hosted the Bill Barrett Memorial Super Dual with Alpena, Cheboygan, Birch Run, Onaway and St. Ignace with wrestling beginning at 10 a.m. Next up for the Hurons will be the first Straits Area Conference Quad in Newberry on Jan. 5 and a trip to the Escanaba Invitational on Jan. 8. The next home action for the wrestlers will be on Jan. 26 when they host a conference quad.