Friesen turns focus to wrestling
It was anything but smooth sailing for Mia Friesen on her way to qualifying for the 61-kilogram juvenile (under-17) final at the national wrestling championships in Fredericton, N.B.
After winning his first two matches 13-0 and 10-0, the 16-year-old St. Catharines resident found herself down 8-0 in her semifinal match.
“In the middle, I got yelled at by Sweez (Sweezey) and then I realized how badly I wanted it,” she said. “Then I came back and won it 12-8.”
There were no such heroics in the final against Aleah Nickel of the Swift Current Wrestling Club.
“In the gold-medal match, honestly I got killed,” Friesen said, with a laugh. “This girl was a second-year juvenile and I am a first-year juvenile and she was awesome.”
The Grade 11 student at Governor Simcoe ended up losing 10-0 to Nickel, a member of Canada’s national team.
“I was wishing I was on top, but I was happy,” she said. “I was proud of myself.”
The match was one more invaluable lesson in her young wrestling career.
“I’m learning how to lose and you learn more in defeat than you do in victory,” the 2019 OFSAA bronze medalist said.
The biggest lesson she learned from her first trip to nationals is that anything can happen.
“It’s all heart and you have to want it.”
The silver is still a remarkable result for Friesen, who has only been wrestling for one calendar year. She is proud of how far she has come in the sport, but also realizes how far she still has to go.
“I have done pretty good so far, but there is still so much that I have to learn to be able to be the girl who is winning 10-0 instead of losing,” she said.
Getting there will be accomplished by training throughout the summer.
“It’s going to be a little difficult because track season is in the summer too, but I want to train and get better because I have bigger goals now,” said Friesen, who last spring won gold in the junior girls 80-metre hurdles at OFSAA.
One sport that is now out of the equation is field lacrosse. She was a member of Team Ontario that won gold at the 2018 under-19 field lacrosse championships.
“Even though I have been talking to schools and stuff (about possible scholarships), I decided that it wasn’t what I loved any more and there are better things that I could be doing with my time,” she said. “I wasn’t really playing for me any more. I was playing for other people and you can’t do that for too long.”
Wrestling is clearly her newest passion.
“I’m not too sure why but every time I am on the mat, I feel simultaneously outside my comfort zone and inside it at the same time,” she said. “I think that is pretty cool.”
She is motivated in the sport by the world champions and world medalists that she trains among in the Brock wrestling room.
“It’s high energy, high intensity and everyone just wants everyone else to get better,” Friesen said. “That is so motivating for me and everybody in the room.”
Given all her athletic pursuits, she finds herself in a constant juggling act balancing school and sport.
“If you add up all my absences, I have been gone for a month this semester,” she said, just before she started laughing again.
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