Hurons earn second straight trophy at St. Ignace tourney; 10 earn medals
The Huron wrestlers fended off Clinton in the finals of the 26th annual St. Ignace Lions Club Invitational to capture their second straight trophy at the tournament. It wasn’t as dramatic as last year’s meet, where Rogers City was down by 20 going into the final round and still pulled out the win, but it was a victory nonetheless. The Hurons were up by five points going into the finals, but had the lead taken away from them and trailed by one point before Cody Wenzel clinched the win with an 8-2 decision.
Rogers City finished with 186 points, four ahead of Clinton in second, and nearly 20 points ahead of the third place team, Hart, with 168 _. The Hurons host three schools tonight at 6: Alpena, Oscoda and Ogemaw Heights, and will be in action first against Oscoda and then Ogemaw. Five Rogers City wrestlers earned first place medals at St. Ignace. A total of 10 placed.
“A LOT OF times when you talk about a tournament championship, you talk about the kids who took first and second,” said coach Pat Lamb. “What actually won the tournament for us was the gentlemen who did not place, but came through and got a couple of victories for us.” Those wrestlers were Alex Matthews (130 pounds), Tharin Wilk (112) and Jerome Gapczynski (152), who both picked up points in the consolation rounds. “If you take away those 12 points away that those young men scored, we don’t win the title,” said Lamb. “Sure it’s nice to talk about the guys that took first place, but it’s a total team effort.”
Earning first place medals were Dylan Centala (135), Brent Freel (119), Tyler Gorlewski (215), Chris Rhode (189), and Wenzel (140). Centala has won all of his matches this season by pin except for one. All of his matches at St. Ignace were by pin, at 1:10, 50 seconds, and 1:46 in the final. Freel, who won in the finals 8-4, remains undefeated. He pinned his first two opponents, the quickest in 49 seconds. Gorlewski pinned his first two opponents and won in the finals 6-2.
RHODE AGAIN was wrestling one of the toughest weight classes and proved to be the toughest. He took out his first two challengers in 22 seconds and eventually cruised in the finals against Rand Litzner of St. Ignace. Wenzel also pinned his first two opponents in 1:13 and 1:00 before taking a decision in the championship round. Brian Krueger earned runner-up honors after losing to Casey Bud of Clinton, the number one ranked wrestler in Division IV at 103. Krueger had started his day with pins in 5:04 and 3:03.
Mark Grulke (171) won his final match of the day to finish 3-1 to place third. Taking fourth were Scott Kamyszek (275), Tyler Schuiteman (145), and Mike Mierzwinski (125). “I’m just proud of our kids and the way they hung together all day long,” said Lamb. “We have three junior varsity wrestlers on the team. They were all there and most of their parents were ther
“THERE WAS some fantastic wrestling. This tournament used to be, and I don’t want to take anything away from the St. Ignace Lions Invitational, but it used to be a weaker tournament. When you have a team like Munising place fourth with 96 points, you know the competition has gotten a lot tougher.” The Hurons traveled to Petoskey last Thursday for a tri-meet with the host school and Grayling. Rogers City defeated Grayling 52-24 and was soundly defeated by a strong Petoskey squad, 52-18.
Double winners were Wilk, Freel, and Centala. Single winners were Krueger, Mierzwinski, Matthews, Wenzel, Gapczynski, Matt Tomas (160), and Rhode. In JV action T.J. Sobeck and Chase McLennan were 2-0, while Mike Vogler was 1-0.