Centre Dufferin athletes medal in wrestling at OFSAA

Written By Brian Lockhart

The Centre Dufferin District High School wrestling team did well in regional competition and several athletes qualified to compete at the provincial level at OFSAA in Hamilton on March 4-6.

The CDDHS team had good results over the three-day OFSAA event going up against the best high school wrestlers in the province.

Unlike other high school sports, wrestling is not divided into junior and senior divisions. The sport goes by weight class, so a junior wrestler may be up against a senior during competition.

“Our team had four wrestlers that made it to OFSAA,” explained CDDHS wrestling coach, Adrian Brown. “The whole team was 10 wrestlers for the season, four of whom made it to OFSSA, and the boys team placed top seven in Ontario.”

In most high school competitions, schools compete against other schools based on school size and population. For wrestling, all the schools are placed in one division.

“It doesn't matter what the school size is, for wrestling, its small schools against big schools,” Mr. Brown explained. “We're at a huge disadvantage. Some schools had over 30 wrestlers at OFSAA – we had four. The kids on our team that stuck it out were awesome. Their improvement from beginning to end was massive. Even the kids that didn't make it to OFSAA this year had huge improvement, and they were all around one point away – they were really tight.”

CDDHS wrestler, Brayden McInroy, won silver at OFSAA in the 57kg division.

“You had to qualify by winning Districts, and that qualifies you for CWOSAA. Placing top two at CWOSSA qualifies you for OFSAA,” Brayden explained of the events you need to place at to go to provincial competition. “In the final bout, it was pretty quick. The kid wound up catching me a cradle and pinned me – when you get pinned the match is over.”

Brayden left the competition as the top-ranking athlete from Centre Dufferin with the silver. He did so well, he wasn't even scored against until the final match.

Landan MacRae won bronze at OFSAA in the 38kg class.

“At CWOSSA it was tough, but I didn't get scored against in that tournament,” Landan said. “At OFSAA it was tough, there was a lot tough opponents. I lost my match to advance to the first place round, but I had three more matches after that and I won all three of those.”

CDDHS wrestler, Musa Mangat, also medalled winning the silver in the 42kg class.

It was a successful year for a team that worked hard to train so they could have the best results in their chosen sport.