A week after packing the home gym with fans the Rogers City wrestling team packed St. Ignace’s gym with fans as they brought home the regional title Wednesday with wins over Iron Mountain and Onaway. The Hurons will travel to the state quarterfinals in Battle Creek on Feb. 24.

Following a pep assembly the Rogers City Hurons varsity wrestling team departed for St. Ignace for team regionals last week. Behind them was a packed fan bus, carrying loyal fans of the orange and black.

“Well, wow. It was just a great performance by the Hurons. Again we had our 15th man up there, the crowd was just unbelievable,” said coach Pat Lamb. The orange and black took over the gymnasium not only in number but in volume and in the way they competed as the Hurons beat Iron Mountain 48-29 and Onaway 43-34 to capture the regional championship and move on to the state quarterfinals Feb. 24 at Kellogg Arena in Battle Creek where they will face New Lothrop at 1 p.m.

“It was like districts. Each match was like a chess match with each coach trying to get the matchups they wanted out there, things just worked out in our favor. We wrestled two good teams tonight. It wasn’t easy, it was a battle, we had to get through two battles to win the war,” said coach Lamb. “Coach Lamb gets where he gets because he is awfully good at matchups. He is a good coach, has a good program and does a fantastic job with matchups,” said Onaway head coach Mark Grant Coach Lamb did take his hat off to the Onaway Cardinals and coach Grant. “They really came to wrestle tonight. What a showing for Presque Isle County. In the most northern region in Division IV, two teams from our county butted heads for the regional title. It was a shame we both couldn’t win,” he said.

Double winners on Wednesday in the team regional tournament were Blaise Ryan (160), Caleb Pommerenke (189/215), Andrew Selke (285), Jacob Sobeck (112/19), Cameron Urban (112/19), Joe Sobeck (130) and Evan Lamb (135). Single winners were Jack Ryan (125), Chris Pflug (189) and Austin Bober (152). “I am so proud of these kids for what they have been through all year. We have been through a lot of injuries and a lot of times when the team was short on numbers and we didn’t have a lot of depth but when they all came back and they all got healthy again they just went to work and they came out and the brought it every day. Every day that we asked them to step across that line they brought everything that they had 100 percent or more effort every time; in practice, in school, on the mat, off the mat, they just brought 110 percent effort in whatever they did. That is why they are such a great group of kids. They believe in each other, they believe in themselves and when you believe you can achieve your goals and that is what happened tonight,” said coach Lamb.

BELONGING TO the top eight teams in the state in Division IV this year isn’t the end for the Hurons, as they go to Battle Creek with a goal to win the state title.

“New Lothrop is extremely tough. We are the seventh seed and we have to face the two seed. We don’t really care who we wrestle we just want to go down there and wrestle and have the experience. We are going down there to win a state title, we aren’t going down there to lose to anybody. Obviously being a seven seed it will be a major chore but we have accomplished some things to this day that some people would think were impossible anyways, so why not go in there with the same attitude, that is what we are going to do,” said coach Lamb.