JUNIOR EVAN Lamb was named the most valuable lower weight wrestler at the Bill Barrett Memorial tournament last Thursday. Lamb was 5-0 on the day and avenged an earlier season loss to Gaylord’s Chad Hall to improve to 16-2 on the season. (Photo by Angie Asam)

After starting the season 6-0 the Rogers City Hurons varsity wrestling team got hit by the illness and injury bug and went 3-2 at the Bill Barrett Memorial tournament last Thursday at home.

With senior Joe Sobeck out of the lineup with an illness, senior Blaise Ryan falling ill during his first match and freshman Austin Bober suffering an injury in his second match along with having to void a weight class, the Hurons suffered two losses at home. “The team was wrestling shorthanded but I don’t think we let that bother us at all.

We continued to work hard and wrestled as hard as we possibly could. However, in dual wrestling giving up weight classes is not a good key to success,” said coach Pat Lamb. Rogers City defeated Cheboygan 65-17 before falling to St. Ignace 48-30. They then defeated the Gaylord B team 54-3 before losing to Gaylord 46-25. In the final match of the day for third place, the Hurons took care of Alpena winning 33-25.

Junior Evan Lamb earned the most valuable award for the lower weights as voted on by the coaches and officials as he went 5-0 on the day. A bright spot on the day for Lamb, who has just two losses this season, was defeating Gaylord’s Chad Hall who had defeated him in the first match of the season.

“Evan avenged an earlier season loss in a great match. That was worth the price of admission right there. Although he is my kid and I don’t have to pay to see him wrestle, I think that I would actually pay to see him wrestle,” said coach Lamb. Freshman Cameron Urban was also 5-0 on the day at 103 pounds. Four Hurons were 4-1 on the day. Freshman Jacob Sobeck, sophomores Andrew Selke and Jack Ryan and junior Caleb Pommerenke were each 4-1. Darik McDonald and Noah Sobeck were each 3-2 on the day.

Daniel Pflug was 2-3 on the day while Jared LaFleche and Chris Pflug were each 1-4. Bober was 2-0 before going out with a broken collarbone suffered in his match against St. Ignace. “I really feel bad for Austin (Bober). Austin was having such a great year as a freshman in a very tough weight class (140) and actually he was moving up to 145 a lot, too, which is an even tougher weight class. The young man from St. Ignace unfortunately lost the match when Austin got injured but Rogers City lost a great wrestler hopefully not for the rest of the year but at this point it is looking like it,” said coach Lamb.

THE HURONS were at Mio Wednesday (after press time) for a tri-meet with the host Thunderbolts and the Onaway Cardinals. The Hurons will be at the Roscommon Duals on Saturday beginning at 9 a.m. The next home action for the Hurons will be a conference quad on Jan. 11.