SportsA6 • Houghton Lake Resorter, January 5, 2012 www.houghtonlakeresorter.com

Despite bringing the game to within two points in the fourth quar-ter, the Roscommon High School girls varsity basketball team suffered a 33-28 loss to Standish-Sterling Jan. 3 in Standish.

“It was good to get back at it af-ter Christmas break,” Roscommon Coach Phil Weiler said. “We showed some rust in the first half.”

Leading the Bucks in scoring was Logan Hutek with 12 points. Kay-la Hawkins chipped in with eight points while Liz Gendernalik had four points.

“Logan Hutek did a nice job de-fensively,” Weiler said. “Liz Gen-dernalik played tough on the inside and did a good job on the boards. Kayla Hawkins finally got going in the fourth quarter and we got the score to within two points but could not break even.”

“We are playing OK on the defen-sive side of the court,” Weiler said. “We just have to find some more scoring options and we have to do a better job on the offensive glass.”

With the loss the Bucks drop to 2-5 on the season. They travel to Beaverton on Friday night for a 6 p.m. Jack Pine Conference game against the Beavers.

Panthers edge Bucksin girls hoops

Gerrish Township Marina employee Bruce Grinnell puts a layer of water onto the ice rink located at the marina on Tuesday afternoon. According to Gerrish Township Supervisor Frank Homola the rink cur-rently has about an inch of ice. He said the rink needs

between an inch and a half of ice to two inches of ice before it can open, which he says is planned for this weekend if the weather cooperates.

(Photo by Mike Metzger)

PREPPING THE RINK

The Mid Michigan Storm high school hockey team picked up a much needed win over the holiday break beating the Freeland Falcons on Dec. 28 in Midland by a score of 6-3.

Coach Troy Gary said the Storm got on the scoreboard first with a goal from Kyle Baumann, assisted by Alec Gary. Freeland evened the score on a power play, then Manny Sheets connected for a goal assisted by Johnny Parker and Andrew Kruse. Freeland came back with another goal to end the first period 2-2.

The second period was all Storm as they out-shot Freeland 16-5. Michael Stanislawski, Devin Griffus, and Charlie Howe all put in goals in the second pe-riod to make the score 5-2. Charlie Howe

picked up 2 assists and teammates Zack Smith, Daniel Rathbun, Jimmy Garrett, and Devin Griffus all picked up one each.

The third period ended up a 1-1 tie with Charlie Howe picking up the goal for the Storm, assisted by Seth Gerow, and Daniel Rathbun, and Freeland an-swering for a final score of 6-3. Erica Hall started out in net for the Storm, giv-ing up the first two goals while stopping five shots. Zack Woods came in to play the second and third periods, stopping seven of eight shots to pick up the win.

The Storm’s record is now at 3-6, and they will resume play Jan. 6 at home against Mt. Pleasant. Game time is 7 p.m.

Storm beat Freeland, 6-3

By Alan LardieThe 2011 Merritt Raceway Awards

banquet was held on Dec. 3rd at the Comfort Suites Lakeside at Houghton Lake. After a social hour with plenty of bench racing, stories, and memories, at-tendees were treated to a great dinner.

As the awards ceremony got under-way, Terry Fitzwater, publisher of the Midwest Racing Scene was the first to grace the stage on this most eventful night. Terry was there to hand out sev-eral of the newspapers “Peoples Choice Awards” as voted on by the fans and readers of the paper.

The award for Modified driver of the Year went to Rich Robinson Jr. and Leo “Chief” Pego was honored with the Announcer of the Year award. To the de-light of everyone in attendance, Merritt Raceway was on the receiving end of three awards from this year’s balloting. First up was the award for Best Conces-sion. Most of the ballots noted the new “Tailgate Bar and Grill” as a welcome addition to the previous award winning concessions at Merritt. Best Parking and

Cleanest Facility were also awarded to Merritt for the 2011 season.

Two runner-up positions worthy of mention were Best Dirt Track and Best Promoter. Both of which were awarded to Eldora Speedway and Tony Stewart. Now that’s a tough act to beat and ev-eryone involved at Merritt Raceway are thrilled to finish second to “Smoke.” Thanks to all the fans for voting and the Midwest Racing Scene for keeping Merritt Raceway at the forefront of Dirt Track Racing in the Midwest.

Enough tooting our own whistle. The real stars of the night were up next as Merritt Raceway crowned the champions and handed out numerous special awards to the drivers that put on the show for all the fans each Saturday night. Your 2011 track Champions are David Hilliker in the Thirlby Automotive Late Model Di-vision, Cody Bauer in the Super 8 Modi-fied Division, Adam Brinks in the Liggett Trucking Pro Truck Division, Greg Gra-hek in the Jatex Sportsman Division and Dave Madden in the Jimmy’s Collision Repair Center Factory Stock Division. As a side note Greg Grahek and Adam Brinks are the first father/son champions crowned in the same year at Merritt.

Other notable awards went to Brent Banning for 22 years perfect attendance, Employees of the Year were Denise An-cel and Alice Chrispell for their hard work and dedication and the Promoters Choice Award going to RW Riedel Co. for all the work helping with improve-ments to the facility over the last couple years.

Honored by their peers by votes tal-lied at the banquet were the recipients of the “Ed VanDuinen’s” Sportsman of the Year award. The winners were, Da-vid Hilliker Late Model, Steven Hilliker Modified, Richie Sutherland Pro Truck, TJ Erickson Sportsman and Dave Mad-den Factory Stock. Rookie of the Years honors went to Dan Hersey Late Model, Andrew Terrill Modified, Gary Hammar

Pro Truck and TJ Erickson Sportsman.Merritt Raceway, Rick and Sally

Ancel and the entire staff thanked fans, sponsors, advertisers, drivers, crewmem-bers and supporters for their patronage in 2011 and said they are looking forward to seeing everyone when the gates open on the 2012 race season.

Awards both given, received at Merritt Raceway banquet

The Houghton Lake High School boys junior varsity basketball team has dropped four consecutive contests. The Bobcats fell to Farwell 39-37 Dec. 15 at Farwell, dropped to Tawas 58-45 at Tawas Dec. 19, lost to Lake City 58-43 Dec. 22 at HLHS and were trumped by Grayling 75-26 Jan. 3 at home.

Eagles 39, Bobcats 37According to Coach Eddie Johns he

and Coach Ken Hall’s Bobcat squad led most of the game and that “this one truly got away from us in the end.”

He said the score was close the entire game, but his squad seemed to lack some spark to really pull away and seal a win.

“Some fundamentals such as lay-ups and free throws really hurt us,” he said. “At one point in the second or third quar-ter we had four fast breaks in a row and missed lay-ups.”

Leading the JV Bobcats was Mike Ignat with 10 points. Keenan Rummer finished with nine points.

“I think our team learned some valu-able lessons on what it takes to finish a game today, it was just frustrating to lose while learning these lessons,” Johns said.

Braves 58, Bobcats 45“I am not sure the final score reflects

how much better we played tonight than last week at Farwell,” Johns said, “Ta-was City had a guard and post player who really took control of the scoring, but overall our effort and drive felt much more like where it should be.”

Johns credited Tawas saying “to-night I think we just got beat by a better team.”

Tyler Sluck led Houghton Lake with 21 points while Justin Blanchard scored 12 points.

“We had low numbers, only hav-ing two players on the bench to grab a

breather,” Johns said. “When we would make a run, Tawas put in a fresh five players and really just wore out our di-minished line-up.”

Trojans 58, Bobcats 43Coach Johns said that Lake City

brought a lot of quickness and solid fun-damentals to the game.

“We had many good looks and made it to the free-throw line plenty but did not finish with points on the board,” he said. “I feel as though we played com-petitively and had the same good shots that Lake City had.”

“Lake City just did a much better job of finishing the baskets,” he noted.

Johns noted the score was even at 19 at halftime, however, “As our defense started relaxing and our team stopped boxing out like in the first half the 15 point gap quickly opened up.”

Sluck led with 11 points and Steven Storey had eight.

vikings 75, Bobcats 26“Grayling brought speed and control,

getting to the basketball often and finish-ing their shots,” Coach Johns said. “As a team Grayling sees the entire floor pretty well, they keep their heads up and often find the open player.”

Johns noted that his squads offensive downfall was “that we played into their game plan, we rushed and forced more turnovers than we are used to.”

Leading the Bobcats was Sluck who scored 12 points.

“This was by far our worst effort game this season,” Johns said, “If we do not stick to hustling for rebounds and loose balls or making sure we get back in transition we have beaten ourself before the game even starts.”

The Bobcats are scheduled to host Gladwin tonight (Thursday) at 7:30 p.m.

JV Bobcat boys squad drop four straight games

Pure Michigan Winter Trails Day, a chance for children and adults who are new to snow-shoeing and cross country skiing to try both activities for free, is Jan. 7.

Cross-country skiers and snowshoers can head up to the Hanson Hills Recre-ation Area in Grayling on Saturday to participate. Free cross-country ski les-sons are available beginning at noon until dusk. (The trails open at dawn for everyone.)

The lessons are for beginning skiers, whether they be adults or children. Call Jeremy at (989) 348-9266 to preregister.

Cross Country Ski Headquarters at Higgins Lake will also host Pure Michi-gan Winter Trails Day, but all of its pre-registrations have been booked.

Winter Trails Day Saturday

Goodyear Wednesday NightIn-House Shuffleboard League

Dec. 28Goodyear 1 66/33Goodyear 3 66/33Goodyear 5 51/48Goodyear 2 49/50Goodyear 6 47/52Goodyear 4 18/81

Shuffleboard

Amateur motorcycle racer Dan Ab-ney, 28, of Houghton Lake finished in third place in the A-200 Class of the 2011 American Motorcycle Association/ Rekluse National Enduro Series, which ended with the Muddobber’s National Enduro in Matthews, IN on Oct. 1.

Abney finished fifth in the Matthews race, after taking ninth at the ZTR Na-tional Enduro in Zanesville, OH on Aug.

28, where he said “with all the hills, mud and rock, I was way out of my ele-ment. It was like riding on ice down there. If you can ride on that, you can ride on anything.”

He was coming off a seventh place finish at the Pennsylvania Rattlesnake Enduro at Cross Fork, PA where he was riding in-jured, due to a crash in the 86th Jack Pine Enduro at Moorestown July 17, when he was hit by another rider from behind and suffered a broken rib. Despite the injury, he finished sixth in the Jack Pine, which he considers his home race.

Between Moorestown and the national series race at Cross Forks, Abney also

raced in the Knucklebuster Enduro at his former hometown of Greenville on his birthday, Aug. 21. He took first place in his class and was 13th overall among over 150 riders.

Abney said he plans to compete in the 2012 AMA/Rekluse National Enduro Series which begins on Jan. 29 with the Sumter National Enduro in Sumter, SC.

Enduro racer Abney takes third in national series

Dan Abney

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