The Cowichan Valley Wrestling Club hosted the first ever Western Canada Wrestling Club Championships March 9-10 at Queen Margaret’s School. The event brought in more than 170 wrestlers from across the province in four different age groups.
“It was great to see wrestlers as young as four years up to nearly 40 years of age competing,” said coach Nick Zuback.
The Elementary, U16 and U19 divisions competed on the Saturday and the novice adult competed on the Sunday. In the end Cowichan wrestlers proved to be some of the strongest wrestlers in the province, capturing the team titles in Elementary, U19 and the adult divisions.
In the U16 division, Cowichan took second overall as a team.
“There was a lot of positive feedback about the entire event and all the teams said that they would definitely attend again next year,” Zuback said. “A huge thank you goes out to the CVRD and QMS as official sponsors of the event, as well as all the volunteers that came out to help make it such as success.”
First place CVWC athletes included: Forrest Boylan, Skylar Bilot, Emma Dyer-Price, Finn McMillan, and Noelle Klatt in their weight classes in the elementary division; Ben Cote, and Brady Zuback in their weight classes in the U16 male division; Antonio Iannidinardo and Jack Pye in their weight classes in the U19 male division; Colton Koopmans and Nolan Mitchell and Jack Pye in their weight classes in the adult novice male division and Rei Nagatomi in her weight class in the adult novice female division.
Placing second in their respective weight classes in the elementary division were CWVC’s Levi Boylan, Nia Jones, and Ella Armstrong, while Tyler Belanger and Bill Miao were second in the U16 male division. Carter Zuback and Gabe Carreiro were second in the U19 male division while Josh Isaac, Dawson Jory and Aiden Dyer-Price placed second in the adult novice male division.
Third place finishers in their respective categories included Evan Blumberg, Athena Scott, Hazel McMillan, Sadie Armstrong in the elementary division; Mason Martin in the U16 male division, Ruby DeGraff, Lyla Boylan and Georgia Armstrong in the female division; Jacob Armstrong, Zach Staicesku and Miri Suzuki in the U19 male division; and Ayla Whitehead in the adult novice female division.
Elementary division fourth place winners were Greyson Rappel, Olivier Levesque, Hailey Pharis, and Grace Atkinson. Fourth place finishers in the U16 male division included Logan King and Tate Marston. Beatrix Klatt was fourth in the female division.
Elijah Cote and Grant Coulthart were fourth in the U19 male division while Kenny Boylan was fourth in the adult male novice division.
Next up for the Cowichan wrestlers will be the National Wrestling Championships in Ontario next month.