Friesen golden at nationals
Mia Friesen’s gold medal at the recent national junior wrestling championships will help erase the memories of her first appearance at the Canadian championships.
“My first nationals I was a juvenile and I got smoked in the final,” the 20-year-old St. Catharines resident said. “I won semifinals 12-8, coming back from 8-0 and then I got crushed in the final. This year it was a little bit more smooth sailing.”
Smooth sailing is definitely an understatement.
“Mia had an outstanding tournament getting gold in the juniors and silver in the seniors,” Brock coach Dave Collie said. “She walked through the junior competition in dominant fashion and, up until the final, she walked through the seniors as well. Then she came up against a tough opponent from Montreal.”
To win the junior title, Friesen won three matches, including the final 10-0 by technical superiority late in the first round. There were no thoughts about her last visit to nationals as she competed in 2022.
“It was so long ago and I am not that wrestler any more.”
There was no secret to her success.
“I wrestled the way that I know how to wrestle and I put all my belief in my coaches. We all worked our asses off.”
Friesen has made dramatic improvements in her game since last September.
“I’m better at pulling the trigger and I have more ground moves. I still don’t have a lot of ground moves but in September I had none,” she said. “Now I have things I can go to. I have a gut wrench and I have a cross angle. They are nowhere near perfect or even great. They are decent but they work.”
Friesen used to win a lot of matches because of her sheer athleticism but now she had added technique and an improved mental game.
“I am more confident in myself,” she said. “Sometimes I have a problem with that.”
The reigning Ontario University Athletics silver medalist wasn’t thinking what anyone would expect as she readied to have the Canadian gold medal placed around her neck.
“I was thinking, ‘Please don’t say my name wrong. Please don’t say my name wrong.’ And you know what they did, they said my name wrong. They said Mya.”
The two other girls on the podium has last names that were hard to figure out and all three wondered aloud before the presentation about how their names would be pronounced.
“We were all laughing about it.”
That laughter turned to joy when Friesen’s long-time coach, Heather Sweezey, hung the medal around her neck. Sweezey had been with her since the beginning.
“She brought me to the Ontario Winter Games when I was in Grade 10 and I wasn’t even part of the club. I was just wrestling for my school and I didn’t even know who she was. She just told me I had to do it.”
After placing fourth at the Ontario Winter Games, Sweezey had a serious talk with Friesen about her wrestling future.
“She sat down beside me on a bench and told me that I would be joining Junior Badgers in the fall and that she was going to teach me how to wrestle because I didn’t know what I was doing,” Friesen said, with a laugh. “I can’t name a tournament she hasn’t been at.”
Her victory qualifies her to attend the junior Pan Ams and the junior world championships. Pan Ams are in Mexico July 6-11 and the junior worlds are in Bulgaria Aug. 15-21.
“When I was really young, my dad said something to me when I first got my Team Ontario gear. The gear came in and I thought it was crazy. He was a national team member and he looked at me and said, ‘Just wait. Wait until you get to open a box and it says Canada across the back.’ That has been ingrained in my brain since I was little and now I am waiting for that stuff to come in and wear it.”
Friesen represented Canada once before in Germany but she knows that won’t compare with what’s coming this summer.
“I am excited to get my feet wet.”
After nationals, the second-year psychology student at Brock took a two-week break and she is now back to training four days a week. It is a labour of love.
“It is something that I can’t really explain. I picked it up in Grade 10 and it went flying from there. I love everything about it and I love that it is me. Whether I win or I lose, it is me. It’s not the coaches, the ref or the other girl. On the flipside of that, when I win I attribute it to my coaches and my training. I like that I can share the win and hold on to the loss.”
Away from the mats, Friesen is serving as an assistant coach with the St. Catharines Athletics under-11 girls field lacrosse team
“It is so much fun. At that age, they buy into we bleed double blue and everything is so exciting, You forget how exciting it is to score a goal when you are nine or catch a ball. Everything is a big deal.”
Last year’s OUA field lacrosse rookie of the year is enjoying coaching.
“I don’t miss field lacrosse and I think it is because I am still involved with it. Seeing these girls play and bringing back my knowledge to the association and the girls is really fulfilling for me.”
This is the first story in a series profiling Brock Wrestling Club members who won national titles in 2022.
