W.R. Myers wrestlers golden at rural provincials

By Greg Price
Taber Times
gprice@tabertimes.com

All five W.R. Myers wrestlers’ performances at rural provincials this past weekend at LCI in Lethbridge earned them a trip to provincials March 11-12 in Sherwood Park.

Kathrin Waeckerlin earned herself rural gold with a 5-0 grappling record.

“She had a good tournament with a tough bracket. She managed to keep it all together and take everyone down,” said Emmitt Campbell, a coach with the W.R. Myers Rebels wrestling team. “All the other girls in her category had different strengths and she managed to adapt and come out on top.”

Dakota Foster also managed gold in a bizarre turn of events with overall scoring that took wins over overall points.

“There was a little bit of shenanigans behind that one. The provincial champion beat Dakota by points as opposed to pins in the round robin. There were four matches with Dakota winning two by pin with the provincial champion losing his match,” said Campbell.

“Because of that, Dakota got the gold medal. It wasn’t a tainted medal because Dakota won the matches he needed to win and the other guy didn’t. Dakota came out hard and being a second-year wrestler, he’s giving these guys all they can handle and then some.”

Peter Waeckerlin won silver in his category going up against an adversary that may be commonplace in the future.

“It was an absolute dog fight of a match from a guy from Winston Churchill, and I think he’s the same age as Peter, so I think we’ll be seeing that one go through for the next few years,” said Campbell. “There were no pushover wrestlers for Peter either.”

Liesl Steinborn earned bronze.

“She came out and won her first match of the tournament and it set the tone. I don’t think the rest of her group took her very seriously and then she pinned her girl and everyone was going ‘oh, I guess we won’t have an easy tournament,” said Campbell.

Helena Froese finished in fourth in an extremely competitive field.

“She had without a doubt had the toughest bracket in the entire tournament. She was in every single match, unfortunately she just came across some more experienced wrestlers that pulled it off right at the end,” said Campbell. “Three of her four matches she was winning and in control.”

Wrestlers had to finish fifth or higher at rurals to qualify for provincials.