The Sudbury high-school wrestling crew will have very little time to recover this week.
After gathering to contest the Ron Preston (SDSSAA) Championships at E.S. l’Horizon on Tuesday, the small but spirited crew leaves Friday for Sault Ste Marie, site of the NOSSA meet, with St Mary’s College playing host.
The city competition this week marked the first time since 2019 that Sudbury has staged the event and while there is clearly some rebuilding to the roots of wrestling that needs to be done (because of the very nature of wrestling, the ultra-close proximity of competitors, the sport likely took a bigger hit than most because of the pandemic precautions) in order to field robust matches in all weight classes across the board.
The Preston Meet nevertheless brought together a very interesting mix of young athletes, some with a snippet of wrestling background, but most starting from scratch this school year. A Nigerian-born rookie with the Sudbury Secondary School North Stars, Khalifa Jalo (130kg) is one of the many wrestlers who have progressed in leaps and bounds this winter.
“At first, I was getting pinned all the time,” said the 17 year-old grade 12 student whose initial sporting interest would involve fooling around with a soccer ball with friends throughout his youth in Africa. “At my first two meets, it was pin after pin after pin. Then I took it upon myself not to get pinned anymore. You don’t want to get into the wrong spot; that’s basically it for me.”
Prompted to join the team for the first time this year on the urging of coach and former multiple-time city champion Erica Turcotte – “she is really nice; she is the reason I am here” – Jalo picked up a big victory late in the day to secure a 4th place finish in his bracket.
“I was trying to do my over/under, but he kept on defending that,” explained Jalo. “So then I switched to a single and at the end, I did a double to win. My coaches we’re yelling: get it done.”
A grade nine student at E.S. Champlain who trains at Horizon (his school has no mats), Tysen Doherty laid claim to have some experience in wrestling as a 10 or 11 year old – before clarifying that his original foray only lasted a week or two. Much more immersed the second time around, the 15 year old who earned Jr Boys MVP honours now has a much better idea of exactly how to approach his bouts this year.
“It’s good to have a game plan before you go in,” suggested Doherty. “Try that first, and if he counters, whatever comes to mind, you try and do.”
The challenge, however, is to be able to maintain some presence of mind in the heat of battle, not the easiest ask in the world from emotional teenagers. “You get in there and your mind goes blank,” admitted Doherty.
All of which likely explains the fact that so many instructions are shouted from the corner coaches and staff. “You can hear them, but sometimes it’s not good because the other person can hear them too,” he said.
“In my first or second tournament, my coach was yelling “shoot for the leg”. I shot for the leg and the dude sprawls. His coach says “shoot for the leg” – so I sprawled. It just kept going back and forth.”
Placing third in the 67.5kg division, Doherty recalled his very first pin a few weeks back, one of the highlights of his wrestling career to date. “I didn’t like how I did it, just because I didn’t set it up properly – but I got him to his back and pinned him.”
Because of limited numbers, wrestlers in the same weight class tend to become very well acquainted. Jumping back in the sport this year after competing in grade nine and advancing to OFSSA in 2019, Horizon senior Gabby Roy has developed a very interesting rivalry with Sudbury Secondary newcomer Sophie Simo.
“At first, she was standing straight up, but now she has a really powerful stance; she doesn’t give anything away,” said Roy, who will celebrate her 18th birthday later this spring. “If I want to make points, I really have to work for it.”
“At first, I was beating her – but this is her first year and she was practicing more and it got closer. Then there was a meet where I won twice and she won the third time and since then, she’s been winning. She has come up really good – I am really proud of her.”
Joining Doherty in earning MVP accolades, Roy secured the nod in the Sr Girls division, with Daniel Poulin-Poitras (Lasalle) and Kylie Longe (Bishop Carter) doing the same in Sr Boys and Jr Girls.
The excitement of those who have picked up the sport for the first time this year is palpable in the gymnasium, a fact not lost on Mitch Deschatelets. A native of Sturgeon Falls and member of one of the most prominent wrestling families in the entire province, Deschatelets was granted permission to bring his re-launched Franco-Cité squad to the meet, although they are not members of SDSSAA.
“I have some friends that I wrestled with in high-school,” said the member of the well-known Leisure Farms family on the shores of the Sturgeon River. “Their kids are now in high-school and they asked me about starting it up again.”
“We just wanted to expose them to a tournament ahead of NOSSA; it’s different than practice,” he added, stoked by the fact that his six-athlete team is comprised almost exclusively of grade nine talent. “They all have potential, if they stay at it,” he said. “I’m hoping they stick to it.”
The 2023 SDSSAA Wrestling Champions were:
Girls Divisions47.5kg – Gabrielle Chenard (ESMC)
51 kg – Jordyn Vildis (LIV)
54kg – Andrea Pretty (HOR)
61kg – Grace Beange (SSS)
64kg – Kylie Longe (BAC)
67.5kg – Payton Stos (LIV)
77kg – Sophie Simo (SSS)
89kg – Paige Kennedy (LIV)
Boys Divisions
47.5kg – Logan Constantin (CHP)
61kg – Kian Marshall (LOE)
64kg – Cedric Toupin (ESMC)
67.5kg – Jacob Duhamel (LIV)
72kg – Kolby McLean (LIV)
77kg – Alain Levesque (ESMC)
83kg – Ryland House (ESMC)
89kg -A.J. Guitard (LAS)
95kg – Zach Caron (BAC)
130kg – Daniel Poitras-Poulin (LAS)
While the Lively Hawks would swoop away with the girls aggregate banner, it was the Macdonald-Cartier Panthères who would earn overall combined bragging rights, with their boys capturing the SDSSAA banner on their side of the draw.
