A pair of Maple Ridge Secondary Ramblers are eager to join their fellow wrestling teammates at Simon Fraser University next year.
Grade 12 grapplers Ivy Threatful and Adrian Truong have been wrestling at a high level since they were in Grade 8, and are looking to continue their success into their post-secondary years.
“We’ve got Ryan Hicks and Marquesis Haintz at SFU right now,” MRSS wrestling coach Bill McCrae said. “And these two will follow in their footsteps.”
READ MORE: Maple Ridge wrestlers dominate provincials
Threatful is the defending provincial champion at 51 kilograms, and won most outstanding female match at the provincials in a wild back-and-forth with South Island’s Zena Shew.
Shew had Threatful’s card in three previous matches through the course of the season, McCrae said. But the local scrapper was able to win when it mattered most.
The doting coach points out determination and technical experience as strengths for Threatful.
“She just rips,” McCrae said. “She bears down on her opponents, and beats them mentally and physically.”
SFU wrestling coach Justin Abdou is already very keen on the Threatful, McCrae noted.
“He figures she’s the number one recruit in British Columbia,” he said, adding the university coach has already asked for Threatful and Truong’s transcripts.
While Truong did not have the success he was hoping for in last year’s provincials – he finished fourth in the 70-kg class – McCrae thinks the future is bright for him, too.
“His time is due,” he said. “He will win this year if we wrestle. He’s a physical monster.”
Truong is one of the strongest students in school, his coach elaborated.
“I do a strength training class, and Adrian won both the powerlifting and Olympic lifting competitions at the school.”
For 33 years in a row, MRSS wrestlers have started training on the Tuesday after Remembrance Day. This year will be no different in that regard, but the exercise will have to take place outside the usual confines of the gym, McCrae explained.
“We’re trying to keep the tradition alive in these trying circumstances, so we’re going to do some conditioning outside,” the coach said. “And there won’t be any contact wrestling yet.”
With the latest provincial restrictions against group fitness classes in place to start the season, McCrae said the athletes are feeling a bit antsy.
“They’re under some mental strain, but now we’ll at least have something physical for them to do,” he said. “They’re all really looking forward to getting back into it.”
ronan.p.odoherty@blackpress.ca
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