The wrestling team representing Yorkton Regional High School has had a very successful season so far.
The team consists of six athletes who practice at Yorkton Martial Arts three times a week. Team members are Riley Richards, Jordan Stewart, Katelynne Hoffman, Kahrina Cameron, Kurt Hoffman and Seth Fast.
Austin Hovrisao is the head coach of the team, and said the wrestlers have improved quite a lot since the beginning of the season.
“They’ve done three tournaments. They all win gold in their novice category, which is the category they belong in,” said Hovrisao.
He said although they don’t qualify for the elite category yet because of age, they’ve been wrestling in the elite division for the experience.
“They still do really well. In the last tournament, two of them medaled in the elite and all three [who competed] won gold in novice,” he said. “I couldn’t be happier.”
Hovrisao said one thing that’s different for the YRHS team compared to teams from Regina and Saskatoon is the amount of times they get to practice, and compete.
“Being around so many high schools, they get to compete on weekends,” he said. “They get a big head start on us.”
Although it’s Hovrisao’s first year as the coach of the wrestling team, the sport is far from new to him.
He went to high school at YRHS, and that’s when he started wrestling. He was successful with his high school career, and so he went on to wrestle at the University of Regina.
In his third year, he qualified all Canadian with national collegiate wrestling. His team won the western Canadian championships in the same year.
Jordan Stewart is a grade ten student at YRHS. He’s been on the team for four years.
He said for him, the battle you find in wrestling is what sparks his interest.
“It really shows, in the end, what you’ve got, and what you can give. And how much fight, sacrifice and time you’re willing to put in to get better,” he said.
He said the team has gone far this season, but his goal is to get to nationals.
“Another one is to get to regionals and try our best, so we can get to provincials and see what happens from there,” said Stewart.
The team has regionals coming up in just a few weeks. From there, the top three or four will qualify for provincials.
According to coaches, Stewart is expected to do very well in the remaining tournaments.
As for the game plan leading up to the tournaments, Hovrisao said the plan is to keep doing what they’ve been doing.
“We’ve got three weeks to brush up,” said Hovrisao. “We’re going to sharpen the techniques they’ve been taught – I’m not going to start teaching them new stuff at this point. And the conditioning is huge.”
Hovrisao said his goal in the future is to start teaching wrestling clinics around Yorkton, to raise awareness for the sport in hopes of growing his wrestling team in future years.
