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And the Elks are feeling a healthy sense of urgency as they prepare for tonight's final league dual against Grayling.

Wrestling the Vikings on their home mat presents the Elks with a unique opportunity to gain a good dose of momentum to take into the league meet.

Last week proved a rollercoaster ride for the Elks, who lost to LMC opponent Traverse City St. Francis, 44-30, on Tuesday and then split a pair of matches in a tri-meet at home last Thursday.

The Elks began the evening with a 55-18 loss to Cheboygan Area, but rebounded with a convincing 54-24 win over LMC opponent Boyne City.

Boyne also lost to Cheboygan, 60-15.

Elk Rapids finished sixth after going o-5 at the Petoskey team tournament last Saturday won by the host Northmen, who were 5-0. The Elks lost to Grand Rapids Catholic Central, 54-21; North Branch, 38-30; Ortonville, 52-30; Marquette, 45-36, and Petoskey, 52-27.

When the dust had settled, the Elks came out of the week 10-13 overall and 2-2 in the conference.

Senior 103-pounder Maggie Peterson improved her record to 25-4, while junior Tyler Shananaquet is 21-7 at 171 pounds.

Jason Benak, a senior, went to 18-12 at 135; Garrett Foss (junior) has a 12-9 record at 285, Dylan Helferich (senior) is 17-13 at 189 and Jared Benak (senior) is 15-12 at 140.

"As the scores show, it was a tough couple of weeks for us," Elks coach Rob Petersen said. "We started the new year pretty solid at Reed City on Jan. 5, but things sort of fell apart after that."

St. Francis pulled a few surprises in the lower weight classes that had the Elks rocking back on their heels.

The Elks couldn't get on a roll after that, and they never theatened to give the Glads a battle in the upper weights.

Elk Rapids had the same problem against Cheboygan in the tri-meet at home, a fate shared by Boyne later on.

"After losing some key matches in the lower weights, the team seemed to revert to a defensive posture and we couldn't quite get fired up to make a comeback," coach Petersen said.

"When we wrestled Boyne, we looked better, but I wouldn't call it a dominating win. As for the Petoskey tournament, we knew we would be giving up a couple of losses in that tournament.

"The Petoskey team is very solid, as well as Ortonville and GRCC. We figured to be competitive against North Branch and Marquette, and with some good wrestling could win those matches."

But mistakes hurt the Elks against North Branch, and Petersen felt they simply didn't wrestle well from top to bottom against Marquette. Petersen was happy with the Elks' effort in their matches with Petoskey, Ortonville and GRCC.

"There were some mistakes, but on the whole the team wrestled very well," Petersen said. "The balance of this season is going to pit us against some very tough competition."

Thursday (tonight) the Elks face Grayling at home in their last dual match before next week's league tournament.

Grayling has a full team with a number of quality wrestlers, and the Elks will have to be on their game to win.

On Saturday, the Elks travel to Gaylord for the Northern Michigan Championships, which boasts approximately 30 teams and is heralded as the toughest tournament in northern Michigan.

"We'll run into some good, quality wrestlers in every weight class," Petersen said, "and will be seeing a number of teams that we'll be facing at the individual district tournament on Feb. 16."