2024 SHSAA Wrestling Recap
Hello everyone, this past weekend Saskatoon's Evan Hardy Collegiate hosted the 2024 SHSAA Wrestling Provincial Championships. I will be including some photos and highlight videos. In this post I will be recapping the wrestling, statistics of the dominating performances, and the individual and team results.
Starting with the wrestling I have noticed that the level of competitiveness, technique, and overall engagement is increasing as the years go by. I was very fortunate to watch my little brother Jonah wrestle in his second high school provincial competition where he wrestled in a tough 62kg bracket, which was later won by Ben Kawa of Holy Cross HS. As I was walking around and capturing some moments, I could not help but feel nervous about taking video and photo of the competition, and after the first day I sat down on my computer and got to work. The next day the featured athletes that I posted were ecstatic about the highlight videos that were made, which made the nervousness go away. Once a wrestler saw that I was filming on their mat, they got in the zone which was very cool to see. The wrestler that I found very fun to watch was Sam Nickel of Holy Cross HS. Sam is a very explosive athlete and that showed when he was able to easily pick up his opponents and rack up points on the board. As for excitement, the two matches that I found the most entertaining was the 65kg male final and the 56kg female final. Hamza Ahmed of F.W. Johnson Collegiate beat Nathan Kowal of St. Mary 7-6 for the crossover match, and Nathan stormed back making it to the final for the rematch. In the 65kg final Nathan and Hamza clashed for gold where it ended in a nail biting 9-8 decision in favor of Nathan. For the 56kg final Meagan Summers of Walter Murray was taking on Renee Bishop of Campbell Collegiate in a match with 37 total points on the board. In this match Meagan was able to hit a spectacular counter throw, and later win with a pin.
Sam Nickel of Holy Cross HS winning his semi-final match.
Nathan Kowal of St. Mary winning the 65KG final.
Meagan Summers of Walter Murray hits a spectacular throw to win an exciting match.
The 4 most dominating wrestlers of the weekend: Owen Ferchuk, Wynn Griffith, Ben Kawa, and Max Kershaw.
These 4 athletes demonstrated that they were ready to face the tough task at hand here at the provincial competition, the gold medal. The athletes mentioned are Owen Ferchuk of St. Mary, Wynn Griffith of Walter Murray, Ben Kawa of Holy Cross HS, and Max Kershaw of Centennial Collegiate. Both Max and Wynn repeated their result from the year before, making them 2-time provincial champions in their respected weight classes.
Wynn Griffith securing the pin and the gold medal.
On the other hand, it was Owen and Ben that improved their result from the year before. Owen wrestled in the 115KG bracket last year and lost in tough bronze medal match to end off his season at 4th place. This year not a single athlete scored on Owen, and he became provincial champion showing the work he put in this season. Ben had made it to the provincial final last year but was defeated by Aaric Lang in the final. Ben Kawa had a tough weight class with two fierce competitors Yuel Hanma and Jonah Sanderson in the bracket, and entering the tournament as the second Saskatoon seed the odds were not in his favor. With upsets in the bracket, Ben showed an incredible performance pinning all of his opponents with only 2 minutes and 17 seconds on the mat.
Yuel Hanma starting his competition with a first period tech fall.
Jonah Sanderson starts his day with a tech fall over eventual silver medalist.
4 most dominant female wrestlers: Liz Chapman, Sarah Murphy, Brooklynn Dieter, and Avery Clatney.
On the female side the dominating wrestlers were Liz Chapman of Holy Cross HS, Sarah Murphy of St. Mary, Brooklynn Dieter of Riffel, and Avery Clatney of Marion Graham. Liz Chapman showed a dominating performance scoring 24 points and not giving up a single point. With six mats in two gyms it was very tough to stay up to date with each match, and since Liz Chapman only spent 2 minutes and 10 seconds wrestling I was unable to catch any of her matches. It was Liz and Avery Clatney who improved their performances from last year, where both of them did not medal. This year they showed that they deserved to be on top of the podium. Avery also did not give up any points, and won all of her matches by pin.
Avery Clatney winning her last match of the tournament.
For Brooklynn Dieter and Sarah Murphy they both won their second consecutive provincial gold medal this weekend. In the 64kg final Dieter was able throw her opponent to the mat, and finish off the match with gut-wrenches and tilts ending the match early in the first period. Murphy's weight class was a pool competition, which meant she had to wrestle everyone in her weight class. In her match against the eventual silver medalist she defended a single leg takedown and put her opponents back to the mat for the pin with a half-nelson.
Sarah Murphy looking for the pin, and Brooklynn Dieter turning her opponent.
First off I would like to thank you for reading up to this point, below is a snippet of the final 2024 SHSAA Wrestling Highlight video. Due to its video size I am unable to upload the full video here and it is on my instagram @clysvisual.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4XRlfrscGX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
A snippet of the 2024 SHSAA Wrestling Highlight video.
All of the content in this post was captured using the Sony Alpha A7iii and using the Tamron 28-75mm lens. I have some photos that I have taken at the provincials I will link that here:
Cole Sanderson
As for the statistics I enjoyed combining the two things I like, wrestling and data. Thank you for reading my article, and if you enjoyed be sure to sign up for my free newsletter for more articles in the future.
The gold medal winners are:
Female
44KG - Avery Clatney of Marion M. Graham Collegiate
47KG - Jill Roxas of Walter Murray Collegiate
50KG - Liz Chapman of Holy Cross High School
53KG - Leann Huang of Campbell Collegiate
56KG - Meagan Summers of Walter Murray Collegiate
60KG - Kayley Clarke of Carlton CHS
64KG - Brooklynn Dieter of Michael A. Riffel CHS
68KG - Noah Remy of Carlton CHS
73KG - Olipa Mwango of Holy Cross HS
80KG - Natalie Heggstrom of Tommy Douglas Collegiate
90KG - Anji Shadiya of Holy Cross HS
105KG - Sarah Murphy of École St. Mary HS
105+KG - Andreea Tatarciuc of McLurg HS
Female Team Results
5A - Walter Murray Collegiate
4A - A.E. Peacock HS
3A - McLurg HS
Male
41KG - Pascal Lavertu of Marion M. Graham Collegiate
44KG - Matias Munoz of Marion M. Graham Collegiate
47KG - Wynn Griffith of Walter Murray Collegiate
50KG - Maxson Nguyen of Bishop James Mahoney HS
53KG - Newton Atencio of Miller CHS
56KG - Jake Vides of Walter Murray Collegiate
59KG - Zecheriah Topping of Walter Murray Collegiate
62KG - Ben Kawa of Holy Cross HS
65KG - Nathan Kowal of École St. Mary HS
69KG - Max Kershaw of Centennial Collegiate
73KG - Aaric Lang of Michael A. Riffel HS
77KG - Sam Nickel of Holy Cross HS
82KG - DeWet Luus of Strasbourgh HS
90KG - Matthew Yong of Evan Hardy Collegiate
100KG - Oti Kabongo of Holy Cross HS
115KG - Aiden Mitchell Ril of Campbell Collegiate
130KG - Owen Ferchuk of École St. Mary HS
130+KG - Ryden Babchuk of McLurg HS
Male Team Results
5A - Holy Cross HS
4A - F.W. Johnson Collegiate
3A - Strasbourgh HS
Resources:
All individual statistics, individual results, and team results retrieved via. Trackwrestling: https://www.trackwrestling.com/tw/opentournaments/VerifyPassword.jsp?tournamentId=848431132
All Saskatoon team logos retrieved from SSSAD: https://sssad.net/member-schools/
SHSAA and RHSAA logos retrieved from their websites:
