In April 2019, UFV decided to postpone its wrestling program, citing funding and organization as the main reasons. This hasn’t stopped the school’s wrestlers from working out or competing in Canada West. While the current wrestlers are as motivated as ever, many new challenges now face the team.
With plenty of wrestlers leaving the program to join other schools, UFV’s team, now independent of university financial backing, is smaller.
For Calista Espinosa, now UFV’s only female wrestler, things became complicated once she realized a smaller team would yield some challenges.
“Well obviously me being the only girl; that was a big change because I don’t really have a lot of partners to train with. The lightest [person] for me would probably be 20 kilos heavier than me,” Espinosa said.
The factor of not having training partners remotely close to your size is a massive hindrance when it comes to preparation; however, the Cascades now must make the best of their situation, and they are. Espinosa said she is looking forward to the year and the challenges it will bring.
The other loss that hurts the team has to do with how wrestling events are scored and how schools win events in U Sports. Though each wrestler has their individual matches, and awards are given based on who won the most matches at each weight class, the overall team score is a combination of the scores for the school’s athletes.
If a school does not have a wrestler for a certain weight class, they receive zero points for that weight class in the team score event. If a school has a wrestler who then does not have an opponent because the other team does not have one for them to wrestle, they automatically receive points. This effectively means that whoever has the biggest team with the most wrestlers competing has the best chance to win the team score at a Canada West or U Sports event. Banners are only awarded to the winner of the team score event, not the individual wrestlers.
Brad Hildenbrandt, the Cascades’ current heavyweight, is one of UFV’s most decorated wrestlers, and said the changes to the program have both positive and negative aspects.
“It’s a little bit of a smaller group … which has its advantages too. You get more one-on-one focus. Obviously I lost some training partners, but we’ve managed to make it work this year,” Hildenbrandt said.
Now the Cascades must forgo their team score aspirations and aim for the highest individual placement for each wrestler at the remaining Canada West events. Though the championship banner will likely not be possible for UFV, individual medals are still attainable for the group. Should some of the athletes qualify, a trip to St. Catherines, Ontario awaits, as the U Sports Championships will take place there on Feb. 21 and 22 in 2020. Almost a month prior to that, UFV will hold the Cascades Classic, a Canada West tournament, right here at UFV. That will take place on Sunday, Jan. 26.
