Strong Contingent of MJ Wrestlers Heading to Provincials

Eight Moose Jaw high school wrestlers booked their tickets to provincials with top-four finishes this past weekend at the SHSAA regional championship in Swift Current.

Peacock’s Kyle Yamniuk led the pack of local wrestlers as he topped the podium in the male 59-kilogram weight class, claiming the gold medal.

“It felt really good to beat all my opponents at regionals and head off to provincials next week,” said Yamniuk. “It was a lot of fun.”

Yamniuk was coming off a gold medal at the 2018 Saskatchewan Winter Games two weeks ago and he carried the momentum over from that win to capture the top spot in his weight division at regionals.

Yamniuk finished all his matches at regionals in the first round.

“I did really good on my offence and on my defence too, I can’t wait to head to provcincials,” he said. “My goal is be top-four at provincials.”

Peacock’s Dylan Yamniuk was one of three local wrestlers that earned a silver medal at regionals. He picked it up in the male 69kg weight class.

“I was pretty happy with how I did, I lost to the same kid in Moose Jaw, but I’m really happy with my performance,” said Yamniuk.

Despite losing to the same opponent in back-to-back events, Yamniuk said that he’s gained confidence from how he was able to perform, “I scored points on the kid, so that was an improvement from the last tournament, I was happy,” he said.

“I was able to keep up with his pace and didn’t allow him to control the match as much.”

Kassandra Loucks picked up a second place finish in the female 68kg class, while Justin Wiens was second in the male 56kg class.

Myra Szabo and Tristan Kuntz also hit the podium at regionals, securing bronze medal finishes in their respective weight classes.

Szabo said she felt like she could have performed better, but is happy to have another shot at improving at provincials.

“I wasn’t really ready for regionals, but I’ll be ready next week,” she said. “I didn’t do as good as I thought, but I was able to see where I need to improve heading into provincials,” said Szabo, who competed in the female 80kg division.

Kuntz earned the bronze in the male 65kg class. He said he was pretty excited with how he wrestled at regionals.

“I’m pretty happy, I did well, could have done more, but there’s not much that I could be upset with,” said Kuntz.

Over the course of the day, Kuntz said he had some pretty tough matches and had to battle through to have success, “Two of my matches were pretty gruelling, they were tough,” he said. “The one that I ended up losing to put me in third was six minutes long and it was a battle back-and-forth between us two.”

Peacock’s Ethan La Rose and Central’s Brayden Johnson are also heading off to provincials after fourth place finishes in their respective weight divisions.

The wrestlers will now have a quick week of training to find tune this week and then they head up to Saskatoon for the SHSAA Wrestling Provincial Championship this weekend at Mount Royal. There will be over 280 wrestlers from around the province competing at provincials. The action starts on Friday afternoon and the championship matches will be held on Saturday afternoon.