Wrestling Medals at Provincial Tournament

The wrestling team had an excellent showing at another outstanding provincial tournament here at King's-Edgehill last weekend. Every one of our student-athletes played a part to cap a great season.

Our sole junior boy, Giacomo Pogliani ‘27, was our most experienced wrestler. His opponents, most of whom were in Grade 9, were always more physically mature. However, Giacomo usually put on displays of technical prowess and tenacity, and Saturday was no exception. He earned a bronze medal in the junior male, 87-kilogram class with the best "ankle pick" on the team.

Our senior girls' team was made of only three wrestlers. Claire Morton ‘23 had no one to wrestle in her weight class, but she stayed with us all day, helping where she could. One of the toughest matches of the day, with the most heroic performances, was between Lauren Boon ‘23 and Katie Hodder ‘23. The two of them wrestled each other with such determination and skill that they could barely walk off the mat after wrestling for nearly six minutes. We learned afterwards that Lauren threw out her back halfway through the first round and wrestled anyway, and Katie won via a 10-point spread at the end of the second.

We pinned our hopes for a team gold on our senior boys. Although overflowing with technical prowess and toughness, they were vastly outnumbered by some of the other teams who racked up points by having so many more competitors. We are still very proud of these student-athletes, who managed to place third with some superb individual performances.

Cole Desrosiers ‘23 had trained with us for only several weeks and, during his first competition ever, dominated the opposition and won gold in the 110-kilogram class. Team captain August Henrici ‘23 did the same in the 96-kilogram class by dismantling his opposition with a lot of the technical skill he has acquired over the last two seasons. Warren Ma ‘24, Vern Metsahuone ‘23, Graydon Spence ‘24, and Declan Morris-Schwarz ‘23 all contributed more points to our total by working hard in tough weight classes. Nate Montgomery ‘23, a skilled and promising wrestler who borrowed from his rugby toolkit to have one of the best double-leg takedowns in the province, lost to the best wrestler in Nova Scotia in his first match. He pulled out of the tournament so as not to aggravate a pre-existing knee problem. 

Levi Spence ‘23 added the techniques he learned over the season to his considerable athleticism to win a silver medal against another one of the best wrestlers in the province in one of the best matches of the day. This match could have gone either way, but Levi lost via a ten-point spread as the clock struck 0:00 in the first round.

Yuta Takahashi ‘24 dominated his competition by going 3-0 in one-sided matches all day. His coachability allowed him to improve with every match. He came up short in his final match against a very experienced opponent.

Huge "thank You" go to our wrestlers, coaches Ms. Ky Walsh and Mr. Kim Walsh, all the great volunteers, Ms. Jennie Weisner and her staff, Emma Toope ‘24 for her great singing, Ms. Crystal Lantz, and Head of School Joe Seagram. We'd also like to point out Major Keith Hynes and his cadet volunteers. Their fantastic performance at the opening and closing ceremonies helped to make our tournament the talk of the province.