Corbett exceeds expectations

The last thing Cassie Corbett expected this season was to be standing atop the podium wearing an Ontario University Athletics wrestling gold medal around her neck.

“Coming on to the team, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy for me to even to have a spot in the lineup,” the 18-year-old Beamsville resident said. “To win was like crazy to me.”

Corbett topped the 76-kilogram division by pinning Mary Adarkwa of Guelph University last Saturday at Algoma University in Sault Ste.Marie.

“I was frigging ecstatic because I was really close to losing that match. I was two points away from losing and I threw her in the fifth minute and I pinned her off of that,” the concurrent education student said. “I was so excited and shocked and couldn’t believe I had done that because I don’t normally throw people. I was super proud of myself because even though I was down so much, I knew that I could do it. It still feels surreal.”

Last year’s bronze medalist at the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations and the Canadian juvenile wrestling championships was not an overnight sensation this season.

“It was a lot of work, a lot of time coming in, a lot of working with different people, learning lots of new things, spending a lot of time with the coaches and having my teammates helping me.”

The biggest adjustment she had to make to become a university wrestler was getting used to the amount of time spent training.

“It was also a lot of lifestyle stages. I feel a lot of the things I do now are more intentional. I plan my meals, I plan my diet and my sleep around wrestling and I had to change my whole schedule to become a university wrestler,” the Blessed Trinity graduate said. “Instead of training once a day, I am training twice a day on the mats and sometimes you go for a lift instead. It is a lot more time spent which is not that big of a deal but I had to manage my time a lot better.”

She has relished the experience.

“I enjoy learning new things and getting a really good workout in every day. I like being able to improve myself. I love that sense of self-improvement every day.”

She doesn’t love everything about the sport.

“I don’t like how I have to wake up every day to commute from Beamsville. I have to wake up pretty early.”

Getting mentally and emotionally tougher has been key to Corbett’s success this season.

“Last year, I had a hard time coming to practice (at Brock) and getting killed every day because I was younger than everybody. It’s not that that stopped when I started coming here this year but I got more used to it. It was tough at the start of the year making that adjustment emotionally but I started to handle it a lot better. I knew there was no way you could be on this team and not have some sort of toughness.”

Getting tougher also came from her experiences away from the Brock wrestling room.

“Losing a lot more in tournaments you get used to it and it toughens you up a lot. I didn’t have a fantastic start to the season. I was losing a lot of matches because of inexperience and I still am. I worked on that a lot because I knew eventually my technique would come around with the more time I spent on it.”

Brock women’s coach Dave Collie describes Corbett as a great addition to the Brock team.

“Coming up and winning OUAs as a rookie is great. She performed well and didn’t get frazzled in the finals. She was down in points and stuck in there and ending up pinning her opponent.”

He has been pleased with the progress she has made this season and agreed getting emotionally tougher has been an important part of her success.

“She is able to grind it out better and not let things distract her and get her unfocused. And her technique is better.”

Next up for Corbett and her teammates are the U SPORTS championships March 2 at the University of Guelph.

“I know some of the girls that I am going to wrestle there so I have to work on certain things to get ready for that. Part of it is getting mentally ready as well because especially with OUAs, I was super anxious for it the whole time,” Corbett said. “If I get myself mentally ready for U SPORTS, I will have an even better tournament.”