First ever KES Regional Senior Girls' Wrestling Championship

King's - Edgehill School has had wrestling in the past, but have only began to field complete teams over the last 23 years. We have had girls join the team in small numbers over the last 18 years, never more than 4 in a category, that was until this year. We have 7 girls in the senior girls division and were fortunate to have the numbers to be competitive, as a team. That being said, we have placed as high as second as a team at the provincial championships with only three girls. Although small in numbers, over the years, the quality was high with a number of individual provincial championships won, since 2007. Only one of the girls, this year, is a returning wrestler and she is our team captain, Tea Racozzi. Tea is a grade 11 student, in her third year wrestling at KES. She has been a driving force and inspiration for the girls and the rest of the team. 

The KES senior girls were fortunate to have won their first ever regional championship this weekend. Every one of the 7 girls contributed to the win. After starting the morning with some of the girls missing their expected weight classes, everything else went as well as could be expected. Team points are only contributed to the highest ranking wrestler from each school, in each weight class. That means that we were only able to gain team points in 4 weight classes, since we had a few of the girls doubled up in the same weight class. Those girls placing behind our highest ranking girls also contributed to our win by beating girls from other teams to lower the team points for other teams, or increasing team points by participation. 

Ella Brown started the tournament by winning the first match of the day, in spectacular fashion. She went on to win all four of her matches and eventually be crowned Regional Champion. Pretty incredible as a rookie and only a young grade 10. She was in the most populated weight class of the tournament and the senior girls was the largest category in the tournament. Ella utilized every technique she has been practicing in training. Tea Racozzi, our team captain, was very dependable and won all three of her matches to win gold. That was despite her not being at her very best. She will have to inspire our girls next weekend, if we want to continue our same level of success. Sharon Estrada, after coming off an Atlantic Championship win last weekend did not disappoint; she was our third regional champion of the day. We also earned 2 of our 25 team points from Mona Mohamed in our last weight class. The closest second place team was Parkview with 13 points with 3rd place went to Forest Heights.

We also had great performances from Camryn Kleynhans, who wrestled up in Ella Brown’s weight class. She won two great matches, lost one on a poor decision and lost a relatively close one to Ella. Elizabeth Usachova started the tournament very well, in the same class as Sharon, but had to be withdrawn due to a shoulder injury. Ella Jollymore has been wrestling extremely well at practice lately but, unfortunately was placed in Tea’s weight class and found it difficult to compete with the bigger, stronger and more experienced girls. She was not deterred and wrestled with heart to help her teammates. Our lone junior boy, Callum Lovelace, was able to improve his competitive decision making and is looking for his breakthrough performance at Provincials next weekend. He continues to improve with every opportunity he has in each event. Tommy Xu did not have any competitors in his 120 kg class and will wait to meet up with his opponents at provincials.

We will be cheering for our senior boys basketball team on Thursday, as they host provincials, and will head off early Friday afternoon to our provincial championship being hosted by East Hants.