Don’t mess with Jess at provincials
In one year, Jess Tillmanns has jumped to first from fourth place at the Ontario junior wresting championships.
“It was kind of surreal,” the 19-year-old said. “I knew that I had won the match, but until you shake the other coach’s hand and go over to your own coach, you don’t realize what has happened and that you are a champ now.”
In the 62-kilogram final, the Beamsville and District Secondary School graduate won 17-6 by technical superiority over Simi Jayeoba of the MAC Wrestling Club.
Last year’s bronze medalist at the nationals is looking at the provincial title as an important first step.
“I get to go to nationals, I get a really good seed and I get some carding points,” she said. “Carding points are huge.”
The first-year outdoor recreation student at Brock won an Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations’ gold medal in 2018 and said the two titles are hard to compare.
“Nothing can compare to OFSAA, but provincials are pretty cool,” she said.
Her goal at junior nationals is to be at the top of the podium.
“If you win nationals, you go internationally and I’ve never wrestled outside of Canada,” she said. “I really want that bad.”
And while Tillmanns is enjoying great success against junior-aged wrestlers, she’s finding it a lot tougher in the ultra-competitive Brock wrestling room. She recently lost a wrestle-off to Daina Armstrong to be Brock’s representative at last weekend’s Ontario University Athletics championships.
“It wasn’t close and it was 12-1 or something,” she said. “It’s tough, for sure, but I think next year I will have a good chance.”
She has learned a ton at Brock since the fall.
“There’s a lot more to wrestling compared to what I knew before,” she said. “Before, it was just go out there and fight and now there’s more technique.
“I am learning a lot more technique and transitional moves and being creative with it. It is kind of like an art.”
She knows what she needs to do to take the next step in her wrestling progression.
“I need an edge,” Tillmanns said. “Mentally right now, I feel like I am a training partner for people and I need to make people my training partners.
“I need to start making these practices my practices, focusing more on myself and being more selfish, I guess. Then I think I will make to the next level.”
Brock assistant coach Dave Collie, who coached Tillmanns at Beamsville, has seen a lot of progress.
“She is really adjusting well to the university program,” he said. “She was already used to training hard at her high school program in Beamsville, but the biggest difference now is she has partners at her own level and those about her level that can really push her to be the best she can be.”
There was no shame in not making Brock’s team this year.
“The teammate that she lost to is in her second year here and she was a former OFSAA champion who couldn’t make the team last year,” Collie said. “People can come into our room as OFSAA champions and national champions, but they know that they have to wait their turn. They know they have to bide their time, but they come here to get better.”
Tillmans has also had to make adjustments away from the wrestling mats.
“Mentally, its balancing school, wrestling and working out,” she said. “You work out four times a day and you just have to grind it out at times.”
She finds the hardest parts of being a student/athlete are time management and finding time for herself.
“It’s being able to have some down time and reflect on stuff because the first semester went by so fast and I don’t event know what happened.
“I was go, go go all the time.”
She was also go, go, go last spring, running for the Green Party in Niagara West in the provincial election.
“It was so cool, I met a lot of people and I learned a lot about the political system,” she said. “And I had a chance to represent my area for a party that I believe in.”
