Brock wrestling teams sweep OUAs for eighth straight year
It was another dominating performance for the Brock Badgers men’s and women’s wrestling teams Saturday at the Ontario University Athletics championships at Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie.
Both teams won six gold medals at the event and took home the team titles for the eighth straight year. The women, who have won 22 of the 26 banners since women’s wrestling began staging championships in 1988, finished first for the ninth straight year and the men captured their eighth straight OUA crown. In total, the Brock men have won 25 provincial titles.
Brock has set itself up well for the U SPORTS championships by qualifying athletes in every weight class.
“That is the critical part of it all,” head coach Marty Calder said. “We did about as well as we could have expected. The kids did well and we won some matches that we knew we were going to be in tough in.”
Brock picked up a lot of individual hardware at Algoma including: Mia Friesen, most outstanding women’s wrestler; Francesca Lo Greco, women’s rookie of the year; Nicolae Gadrabura, men’s rookie of the year; Marty Calder, men’s coach of the year; and, Dave Collie, women’s coach of the year
Earning gold medals in women’s action were Lo Greco (50 kilograms), Friesen (56 kilograms), Bronwyn MacGregor (62 kilograms), Jessica Tillmans (68 kilograms), Vanessa Keefe (72 kilograms), Cassie Corbett (76 kilograms and Brianna Fraser (82 kilograms).
Brooklyn Brown (53 kilograms), Michaela Rankin (59 kilograms) and Samantha Adams (65 kilograms) mined silver.
“We had to default a couple of matches on the women’s side because of little injuries. We want to make sure we are good for U SPORTS and it wasn’t as critical,” Calder said.
Brown and Rankin defaulted their finals but Calder expects both to be ready for the U SPORTS championships at the University of Guelph on Saturday, March 2.
Brock’s women finished first with 94 points followed by McMaster (64) and Guelph (52).
Bringing home gold on the men’s side were Garette Saunders (61 kilograms), Nicolae Gandrabura (65 kilograms), Bobby Narwal (72 kilograms), Max Budgey (76 kilograms), Callum Knox (100 kilograms) and Roger Li (125 kilograms).
Gabriel Blanchette (68 kilograms) and Jordan Wylie (82 kilograms) took home silver medals and Gabriele Sementilli (57 kilograms) and Yazden Farokhizad (90 kilograms) won bronze.
Brock’s men finished with 88 points followed by McMaster (57) and Western (51).
It was a great clutch day for Brock’s wrestlers.
“There were probably five or six matches where we were in real tough and we won. That is a lot for one day,” Calder said. “Usually if you get one or two of those you are happy.”
Among the more notable performances on the men’s side were: Gandrabura winning gold; Wylie beating a guy he had lost to all year to claim silver; Knox defeating McMaster’s Peter Shirley for the first time on the way to his gold medal; and, Blanchette defeating Western’s Zachary Ortencio, who he had lost to this season, to claim silver.
On the women’s side: rookies Corbett and Lo Greco took home gold with Lo Greco defeating last year’s OUA champ in her first match.
“Those matches are swing matches because the other teams are losing while we are winning,” Calder said.
