The Cochrane Cowboys Wrestling team and their alumni brought home the hardware on Feb. 8 and 9 in Calgary and Abbotsford, B.C.
The current crop of junior and senior Cowboys competed in the Churchill Classic this past weekend with the team bringing home a number medals to boot from several wrestlers. Conner Pointen and Brendan McGuire won gold on the boys side while Nicholas Hooper took home silver and Eli Fines, Keath Dostaler and Noah Sharkey brought home bronze medals from the event. Ben Sharkey just missed the podium with a fourth place finish.
On the girls side, Jaityn LaBelle won gold, Catherine Swedlo and Annika Fines finished with silver followed up by Danyka LaBelle and Grace Toner who both won bronze medals.
The Cowboys also had nine wrestlers participate in the Edmonton Golden Bears tournament Feb. 2 and 3 where they finished with eight medals and one fifth place finish.
While the Cowboys were competing in the Churchill Classic, the club had four alumni competing in the Canada West Conference Finals in Abbotsford. Aidan McKeage won silver at the event in the 76kg class with the Alberta Golden Bears while his brother Brendan also won silver in the 61kg division for the Calgary Dinos. Callum and Connor McNeice both won gold for the University of Calgary in the 76kg and 65kg divisions respectively.
Callum and Aidan faced off in the gold medal match, of which Callum won as Aidan had to exit the match early due to injury.
"It feels good to win the gold. I ended up wrestling Aidan in the final and unfortunately he did something to his knee mid match and had to pull out," Callum said of the final. "It's not how you want to win but I wish him the best. Overall I was happy with how I wrestled and I'm excited to take on USports in a couple weeks at our home gym."
Callum also commented on how exciting it was to have so many former Cowboys succeed at the university level.
"It was very exciting to see a group of Cowboys alumni do so well at Canada West," he said. "That just goes to show the depth of coaching we had at such a young age as well as their ability to instill the life long passion for the sport into us."
Barring Aidan's knee injury keeps him out of the tournament, all four Cochrane wrestlers – Aidan and Brendan McKeage, Callum and Connor McNeice – are expected to compete in the USports Championships Feb. 22 and 23 in Calgary.
"Having the opportunity to host USports in our home gym is definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity," said the older McNeice brother.
"It doesn't come along that often. My goal is to win. Will it be easy? No. I know that I have at least a few previous national champions in my weight class, but I am excited for the opportunity of competing against the best."
