Myers wrestlers medal

By Greg Price
Taber Times
gprice@tabertimes.com

Four wrestlers from W.R. Myers found a silver lining at a tournament in Swift Current, Sask. this past weekend with silver medals.

Kathrin Waeckerlin, Peter Waeckerlin, Liesl Steinborn, and Dakota Foster made the trip and made solid performances according to the coaching staff.

“Wrestling is very big in Saskatchewan where they start them in Grade 1 and Grade 2 and carrying them on up,” said Emmitt Campbell, co-coach of the W.R. Myers Rebels wrestling team. “It was a smaller tournament, but had quality wrestlers there. I’d say probably Peter had his work cut out for him, he had the best wrestler there to go up against. He had a dog fight with him where it was mental chess going on, on the mat. Peter adapted well, he lost, but it was one of the better matches to watch in the tournament.”

Local wrestlers competed in as many as four matches during the tournament depending on the number of competitors in their weight class.

“Kathrin was wrestling for gold, but they were running short on time, so instead of stop time, they went to straight time and that played up to the advantage of the other wrestler,” said Campbell. “I don’t think she was in as good of shape, her cardio wasn’t as strong. It was a pretty even match the entire time.”

This has been the wrestling team’s second tournament, with the first being earlier at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute where Campbell noted he is already seeing big improvements in the athletes.

“There’s always room for improvement, but I felt they left it all out there. There are some darn good wrestlers in Saskatchewan, and we hung with the best of them,” said Campbell. “In my personal opinion, we have to keep working on strength and conditioning because it felt like the conditioning wasn’t relied on out there, but they all had almost flawless technique. There are a few moves and ways of doing things out there (in Saskatchewan) that we don’t always see out here. Going out there, we are being exposed to new ideas and different moves we have to defend against.”