Maple Ridge secondary wrestling team captain Linden Sinow Horton led the Ramblers with a silver medal at the provincial high school championships held Feb. 19-21 at the PNE Forum.
Ridge placed 11th in the team standings out of more than 100 schools, and although the results didn’t bring medals, it brought a young team valuable experience for future seasons, said coach Kevin Menic.
“I see next year as being a very successful year for us,” he said. “We’ve got a good young group coming up.”
The Ramblers had a record amount of wrestlers that qualified for provincials, with 28. To score team points, they need to finish in the top six in their weigh class. There were eight Ramblers wrestlers competing for points on day two.
Menic said Sinow Horton had a great tournament, ending with a match against the gold medallist who had quickly ended all of his matches at the provincials, in under a minute. The Ridge grappler took him to the full six minutes in the match.
Other top placers from Ridge included Bella Berner 4th, Callum Ross: 4th, Tyson Deane-Freeman: 5th (63 kg), Gabriel Frizzel 4th (45 kg), Sofia Krakovska 5th (47 kg), London Heath-Watkins 6th (48 kg).
Menic noted Krakovska is the younger sister of Agnia, who won provincial gold and went on to wrestle internationally. Agnia also finished 5th at provincials her first year, when she was Grade 10.
The boys ended up being eighth in the province in team scoring, and the girls 11th.
”The future looks good for Ridge Wrestling,” said Menic, and said he was helped by alumni coaches Todd Deane-Freeman and Ryan Hicks, and helping teacher Conor Kailoff who as a first-year teacher assisted at a tone of practices.
“Also a huge shout out goes to (former Ramblers coach) Bill McCrae who showed up to provincials to cheer us on,” he said.