Quartet of gold for Mohawk Wrestling Club

The joint Howard S. Billings/Kanien’kehá:ka Tehontatie:nas Mohawk Wrestling Club (MWC) had four wrestlers at the first leg of the Quebec Wrestling Provincials, and all four of them came away with gold by default.

Devlin O’Neil won in the 54 KG girls Bantam, Elliott Jones won in the 62 KG girls Bantam, Sienna McWhitter won in the 42 KG girls Bantam, and Titus Geishbrecht won in the 44 KG boys Bantam.

Peter Montour, coach of the MWC, said that the issue of low turnouts that has plagued the MWC girls’ wrestlers all season continued for this part of provincials: they simply don’t have many wrestlers to go up against, and all three girls won their group without contest, as did Geishbrecht on the boys side.

All four athletes needed to do exhibition matches to get any action during this first weekend, Montour said.

Still, the accomplishments of the four wrestlers this year shouldn’t be diminished, Montour said, and they showed a lot of promise during the exhibition matches.

“They did really well, considering they only started in December or January. We’re impressed with them, but we know we still have room to work on them,” said Montour.

All four wrestlers who participated in provincials for the MWC over the weekend are young, in grades seven and eight, meaning there is a lot of time to mold them into even better wrestlers, Montour said.

The provincials had originally been scheduled to take place on February 21, but had to be moved due to location availability issues. They were finally split into two days with two different locations based on age groups, with the younger wrestlers competing on March 14 at Paul-Germain-Ostiguy school in St. Cesaire.

The older wrestlers will compete on March 21 at Claude Robillard Sports Complex in Montreal.

Montour said the split was caused in part because of the growth of high school wrestling in recent years.

Billings hosted the provincials last year, and they went past 6 p.m. Montour said he had to go back to his days as a wrestler in the 1980s at Kahnawake Survival School (KSS) to think of a provincial tournament as big as 2025’s.

To make things more manageable, the decision was made to split the tournament into two, Montour said, but that added the complication of many venues not being able to host twice a few days apart.

As such, the decision was made to split into two different locations, based on age.

The older wrestlers competing on March 21 make up the bulk of the MWC’s roster, and as provincials will qualify for the national championships, they will be giving it their all.

“There are going to be a lot of scores settled, like some people who did not do well at the Greater Montreal Athletic Association (GMAA) championships are going to be looking for payback at the provincial championships,” said Montour.

“We are not going in there expecting to have an easy road. We’re going to take our bumps, but we’re going to give some bumps too. As for expectations, I’m just thinking that a lot of these kids will go out there, they’ll wrestle their asses off and have a good time, and that’s the most important thing.”

Some alumni of the MWC will also be present to wrestle some exhibition matches, which makes Montour happy, as a reminder of how much the program has grown in the years since he and his son Otiohkwanoron took on coaching the program.

KSS did not participate on March 14 but is scheduled to take part in the tournament this Saturday.

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