Salem kicks off season at Lake
Orion and Ann Arbor invitationals

Dec. 7, 2009, 10:32 p.m.

  The Salem wrestling team's season kicked off Saturday at two venues. The Varsity grapplers were in Lake Orion for the Dragon Invitational while the JV unit was in Ann Arbor for the Pioneer JV Invitational.

  The Lake Orion format consisted of a 10-team, round-robin so that each wrestler could get up to five matches if they had a full bracket.

  Some of the best teams in the state attend each year. Salem brought only nine wrestlers and all battled well throughout the day.

  Salem' Blake Abbey was the only Rock to medal, taking third at 215 pounds.

  The Salem JV squad took 27 wrestlers to Ann Arbor. Dozens of teams participated from across the region. This was the first high school tournament for many of our Rock wrestlers and the young Rocks performed very well overall. Placing first through third for the Rocks were:
* Josh Marhoger (152 pounds) - 1st;
*Tyler Gross (160) - 1st;
* Danny Kemp (119) - 2nd;
* Austin Banfield (145) - 2nd;
* Brad Sugg (160) - 2nd;
* Cody Mandelka (171) - 2nd;
* Alex Arble (103) - 3rd;
* Alex Brown (160) -3rd;
* Mike Pelech (160) - 3rd;
* JordanZhou (189) - 3rd.

  Five more Rock wrestlers placed fourth at Pioneer so the future of Salem wrestling certainly looks bright.