“Despite losing matches along the way, the kids never gave up against these more experienced and competitive grapplers,” coach Ed Kelley noted.

On Dec. 6, the team traveled to the Oconto Invite, with three wrestlers competing in their first-ever matches. Goodman’s Gabe Wysocki (220 pounds) and Niagara’s Andar Olson (160) each got their first high school win by a pin. Wysocki wound up fourth, with Olson notching third. Josh Wysocki (132) earned fourth.

At the competitive Rebel Invitational in Wabeno, with 17 schools participating, the Storm sent five grapplers. Florence’s Caitlyn Kelley finished sixth for the Storm’s highest finish.

Varsity level wrestlers were Josh Wysocki, Olson, Gabe Wysocki and Kelley. Pembine freshman Eddie White wrestled exhibition JV matches.

Caitlyn Kelley wraps up an opponent at the Rebel Invitational.

Kelley’s sixth also included her first high school career win by a pin. Unfortunately, the team suffered a significant loss for the season with White suffering a broken arm. This leaves the team with four active wrestlers.

“Missing two practices last week due to the snow days was difficult for the team to overcome, especially with new wrestlers,” said coach Kelley. “We weren’t able to work on moves that needed to be corrected. However, these last two tournaments gave us a good assessment of where we are at and what we need to focus on. Being such a small team is an extreme challenge in that we have wrestlers that don’t have appropriately-sized or similarly experienced wrestling partners to practice with.”

Coach Kelley noted that he believes each wrestler has incredible drive and potential to improve over the course of the season.

“Wrestling is an extremely difficult sport to learn and compete against when you’re first learning it at this level,” he said.

The Northwoods Storm was scheduled to go to the Oostburg Invitation Dec. 21, but with the team being so inexperienced, it was decided to take a one-year hiatus from this invite. The Northwoods Storm boys will instead travel to the Westwood JV Invite on Dec. 20, which will be geared more to their level of experience.

Caitlyn Kelley, however, will be traveling to Madison for the Badger State Invitational on Dec. 21, a larger tournament that will have a dedicated high school girls division for her to compete in.

“These kids are going to have some tough experiences, some tough losses, but if they’re able to persevere through it, they’ll become a much stronger wrestler and a stronger person by the end of the season,” said coach Kelley. “That perseverance is what they can take with them into adulthood when their wrestling career is over with. That’s the important piece of it all.”