Down by 20 points, Hurons pull out tournament win

by Peter Jakey Managing Editor The Hurons wrestlers captured the championship at the St. Ignace Lions Club Invitational Saturday. Rogers City staged a great comeback in the championship round to claim the title. ?We were down by about 20 points,? said coach Pat Lamb as Rogers City trailed Clinton and Munising. ?We had four guys going for first and second, and they all took first, and we had six guys going for third and fourth, and four of them took third.? Four Hurons won individual championships. They include sophomore Dylan Centala (125 pounds) who is 10-0 on the season, victories all by pin.

SENIOR JUSTIN KELLEY (135 pounds), junior Chris Rhode (189 pounds), and Josh Christ (275 pounds) all kept their undefeated records intact. Each wrestler improved to 8-0. Taking third were freshman Brent Freel (112 pounds), sophomore Austin Fairbanks (140 pounds), sophomore Cody Wenzel, and junior Tyler Gorlewski (215 pounds). Taking fourth were Tyler Schuiteman (152 pounds) and Mark Grulke (160 pounds).

The Hurons will be at Cheboygan today taking on the host school and Oscoda. The Marquette Invitational is Saturday, which will provide some outstanding competition for Rogers City. The Huron who had the hardest path to a tournament championship was Rhode (4-0). He pinned his first opponent, but the matches got tougher and he earned the rest of the wins by decision, 10-6, 6-5, and 11-7. Kelley faced his toughest competition in his final match against Josh Daly of Sault Ste. Marie, but came away with a 14-9 decision. Kelley had pinned his previous two opponents in 3:10 and 2:45. He also became of a member of the 100 win club at St. Ignace.

BETWEEN CHRIST and Centala, the two Huron grapplers pinned seven wrestlers. Christ had one of the quickest pins, taking down his second opponent in 40 seconds, two seconds quicker than his opening pin of 42 seconds. In the finals, the match against Aidan Finn of Mancelona didn?t last much more than a minute (1:15). Centala pinned his first opponent in 52 seconds, the second in 1:13, and in the finals against Alex Larson, Dylan took the tournament title with a pin in 2:21.

In the match for third place, Gorlewski had the most dramatic victory with a pin in 31 seconds. Wenzel had a pin at the 3:49 mark and Freel had a convincing 15-0 win, while Fairbanks edged his opponent 4-2.

GRULKE TOOK an 8-6 loss in overtime in his match for third and had to settle for fourth, while Schuiteman was pinned in his match for third in 55 seconds. ?I told the guys before the tournament started, that if we wrestled at or above our seed…we would be in pretty good shape,? said Lamb. ?We had two kids that weren?t even seeded and ended up taking fourth (Schuiteman and Grulke). Gorlewski, another unseeded wrestler, took third.

?Those were points that w

ere critical to our victory,? said Lamb. ?It was a total team effort. Everybody that was there did their very best and I couldn?t be more pleased with where this team is at. The only thing that could please me more is if we had a couple more bodies to fill the weight classes that we are voiding.?

THE HURONS were going up against some top notch competition last Thursday when they traveled to Grayling, which already defeated Rogers City the previous weekend. Also at the double dual was perennial wrestling power Petoskey. The Hurons lost both duals and are 3-4, but the coach couldn?t find anything to be critical of.

?Anybody that knows me, knows that I really don?t like to lose,? said Lamb. ?On the way home I just couldn?t find anything to be upset about. Our kids just wrestled extremely well. They wrestled hard nosed and aggressive, they way they are taught to wrestle. ?I?m just happy with where we are at.?