Despite winning a silver medal at last year’s provincial high school wrestling championships, Abagail Connell was taking nothing for granted.
Even after racking up four tournament victories this season, the Grade 10 Georgetown District High School student wasn’t banking on adding another Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations medal.
“OFSAA is a bit different,” she said. “You’re going against the best in the province, so I didn’t really know what to expect.”
It might be time for Connell to start counting herself among the best after she earned her second straight OFSAA silver medal in the 89-kilogram division at last week’s championship in Hannon, Ont. Teammate Emily Hopper also earned a silver medal.
After receiving a first-round bye, Connell needed just 74 seconds to pin her first opponent.
She said last year’s OFSAA experience did help keep her calm before her matches. It would prove to be the calm before the storm, as she followed up with two more pins to advance to the final for the second year in a row.
Facing Peterborough’s Chelsea Burton in the gold-medal match, they exchanged points early on, however Burton would score two points in the second quarter and defended the lead the rest of the way for a 3-1 victory.
It was Connell's parents who recommended the sport to her.
“They thought I would be good at it,” she said. “I do go to the gym and lift weights, so they thought my strength would play out well in wrestling.”
Turns out they knew what they were talking about.
Hopper was also wrestling at OFSAA for the second time, having reached the quarterfinals last year. The Grade 11 student played on the Ontario under-16 rugby team and said that helped in her first year because she knew how to tackle. This year she came back better versed in wrestling technique.
“Last year I just powered through with strength,” she said. “I knew I had to learn some stuff to get better, some different moves and the right way to do them, not just brute force.”
It paid off as Hopper won her first two matches 10-0. Though she said her third match was tougher than the first two, she pinned her opponent a minute and 46 seconds into the match. She then pinned her semifinal opponent as well, surprising even herself.
“Before OFSAA I had only pinned one or two people,” she said. “I just couldn’t figure out how to do it.”
Hopper would finally meet her match in the 64kg final where Hamilton’s Ella De Almeida, a bronze medallist at last year’s cadet national championships, scored an 11-0 victory to claim gold.
The Georgetown team, which also included Sarina Patriquin and Maggie Jolly, finished sixth.
Patriquin finished sixth in the 41kg class, winning two matches before falling to the eventual bronze medallist.
