The 40th annual Alberni Invitational Wrestling Tournament has come to an end.
Although the home team didn't place at the tournament, coach Travis Cross says that Alberni District Secondary School (ADSS) athletes gained some "valuable" experience throughout the weekend.
"I was impressed with our athletes," he said. "We have a fairly young team, and we knew that they were going to be in some really challenging matches. I think they all learned something this weekend that will help their development in the long run."
The ADSS Storm opened the tournament with the traditional McEvay Post dual meet, and while they made a good showing they couldn't beat the North Shore All-stars, who took the post. The all-stars were made up of the best players from North Vancouver, West Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast.
The invitational took place Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 at the ADSS Gym and drew athletes from approximately 45 schools across Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. Tournament co-chair James Messenger said that the tournament committee actually had to turn away some schools due to capacity limitations.
"We had well over 600 competitors and over 70 schools requesting to be a part of it," he said. "That was probably the toughest part of hosting the tournament, turning people away that wanted to be here and wanted to be a part of the experience."
The Alberni invitational is a "special" tournament, said Messenger, partly because it's been around for 40 years.
"The coaches that are here have memories of wrestling here 30 or 40 years ago," he said. "They want to have that same experience for their athletes. We had nothing but positive compliments from our guests this weekend."
After 40 years of hosting the tournament, Messenger said it was good to see some new ADSS alumni stepping up to volunteer this year.
"We were always overwhelmed with volunteers, which is an amazing gift to have," he said.
Aside from being a learning experience, Cross said that the tournament was also fun for his athletes.
"We had a couple periods where we had four matches in a row — one after the other," he said. "The whole team was there cheering and it was really exciting, because our athletes were doing really well in those matches. Having that experience, wrestling in your own home crowd, is going to be really helpful for our athletes, as well."
Individually, Nolan Cross took gold in the 45kg senior male division. His opponent in the final match was his own teammate, Kane Olsen, who ended up with the silver. Other silver medallists were Evan Jimenez (48kg junior male), Jaxxon Gallic (84kg junior male) and Janna Hiltz (57kg senior female).
In third place were Abigail Silvester (64kg junior female), Trenton Makofka (60kg junior male), Jackson Price (66kg junior male), Danika Currie (54kg senior female) and Alex Bielert (130kg senior male).
Kamryn Mallon (57kg junior female) and Taj Labrie (63kg junior male) took fourth place, while TJ Hernandez (60kg junior male) took fifth and Eli Bayley (60kg junior male) and Rain Olsen (54kg senior male) rounded out the scoring with sixth place finishes.
Next up, the ADSS team will be preparing for the Island Championships, which will take place in Duncan on Feb. 7-8. This tournament is a qualifier for the B.C. provincials.
"The next two weeks is going to be some of our toughest training," said Cross.
— With files from Susie Quinn, Alberni Valley News