Twice in his wrestling career, Dylan Turmel has grappled to gold at the Western Canadian Age Class Championships. He'll be seeking a third title this weekend in Kamloops.
Turmel, a Grade 12 student at Kelly Road secondary, will compete in the 66-kilogram class at westerns. The gathering is an important one because it's also a seeding meet for the high school provincials, Feb. 24-26 in Coquitlam.
"I'm pretty confident," said Turmel, who won all three of his matches at the Kelly Road Invitational, held on Saturday. "Mostly my game is a lot of defence and conditioning. I won't be winded by the second and third rounds when everybody else is really tired. That's normally what I've got on most guys, and speed."
The age class nationals are also on Turmel's radar. Nationals, set for Windsor, Ont., in April, are open but athletes must still meet a certain standard to be included in the field.
At the Kelly Road tournament, Turmel started off with relatively easy victories against Karan Gill of PGSS and Tyler Frizzell of Prince Rupert. Both those wrestlers didn't bring the same level of experience to the mat as Turmel, who is in his seventh season. In his last match, Turmel took on Sam Palfrey of Quesnel's Correlieu secondary and won 5-0.
Kelly Road coach Clint Pattison is anticipating more success for Turmel at westerns.
"He has natural athletic ability," Pattison said. "Right from when I started coaching him in Grade 8, he showed a lot of muscular power and explosive power. He was also in track and doing a lot of sprinting. But just genetically he has a lot of natural talent and he's got a great attitude."
Pattison said Turmel has also greatly improved his technical abilities this season.
"What happens with kids who have a lot of strength right from the beginning, they tend to rely on that," Pattison said. "There were a lot of matches in the past few years where he'd overpower people but they'd beat him on technique, so that's what we're working on. I told him, 'You don't need to get any stronger.' He's strong enough."
At the Kelly Road meet, which was in its 32nd year, Turmel helped his Roadrunners to the boys team title. Kelly Road accumulated 63 points. Nechako Valley (37) and Prince Rupert (32) were second and third.
In the girls team competition, Smithers finished at the top of the standings, with 51 points. PGSS (25) took second spot and Williams Lake (15) was third.
Other local gold-medalists, in various weight classes, were: Eric Halsall (PGSS); Jordan Marshall (Kelly Road); Mark Whalley (Kelly Road); Chance Lewis (D.P. Todd); Mason Young (D.P. Todd) and Jade Fremlin (PGSS).
