Curling, wrestling take the stage as U Sports championship season gears up

With February in full swing, various U Sports athletes around the country are winding down regular season play and looking ahead to playoffs at the end of the month as well as national championships in March.

In curling, the men's Ontario University Athletics (OUA) championship will be held Friday through Sunday in Peterborough, while the women's championship just wrapped up on the weekend with the McMaster Marauders being crowned champions in Oshawa.

The Marauders picked up wins over the Toronto Varsity Blues, Brock Badgers and the defending champion Laurentian Voyageurs to finish with a 3-1 record after group play.

After defeating Western University 7-3 in the quarterfinals, the Marauders avenged their loss to Queen's with an 8-1 victory in the semifinals, setting up a rematch with Laurentian.

The final match was much tighter than their 8-2 group play result, with the teams tied at three-apiece heading into the final end. McMaster was able to steal a point to clinch the victory 4-3, while Toronto Metropolitan University took down Queen's in the bronze-medal game.

This is the first OUA championship for the McMaster women's team since 2020, when they finished fourth in the U Sports national championship.

Second Evelyn Robert earned a spot on the first all-star team while skip Madelyn Warriner and vice Grace Lloyd secured spots on the second team.

The Dalhousie Tigers men's and women's curling teams clinched the Atlantic University Sport (AUS) curling titles on Sunday for the third straight year.

The Tigers returned the favour to Memorial with a close 4-3 win in the semifinals before dispatching St. Mary's 7-3 in the final.

On the women's side, skip Marin Callaghan led the Tigers to a 3-2 record in their six-team group and followed that up with a 7-2 victory over St. Mary's in the semifinals before winning a nail-biter against UPEI 5-4 in extra ends in the championship game.

The Canada West (CW) Curling Championships will be held in Victoria, B.C. on Feb. 24-25.

The national Curling Canada College Championships will be held Mar. 15-19 in Sudbury, Ont, with Laurentian being guaranteed spots on both the men's and women's side as the host.

OUA, CW wrestling championships loom

The OUA wrestling championships are set for Saturday in Hamilton with 11 schools participating.

Brock will enter the weekend as the team to beat in the men's competition after being ranked first in the country on Jan. 30.

The six-time defending OUA champions are fresh off a second-place finish at the Western Open in London on Jan. 28, and will no doubt have their sights set on winning the national title in late February for a seventh straight time (the first since 2020, the last year the U Sports wrestling championship was held.)

Freshman Carlos Vargas of Toronto is the name to keep an eye on for the Badgers as the No. 1-ranked wrestler in the 68kg class, capping off a great season with a dominant gold-medal run in London without conceding a single point in any of his three matches.

Brock will be joined on Saturday by other top 10 schools in Western (third), host McMaster (sixth), Lakehead, Guelph and York (eighth through 10th respectively).

Treye Trotman of London (57kg) and Lukas Geske of Hamilton (82kg) lead the way for the Mustangs, while Gregor McNeil of North York (61kg) and Karan Mahil of Surrey, B.C., (125kg) are the top-ranked male athletes for the Marauders.

The women's competition figures to be incredibly competitive as OUA schools occupy every spot from fifth through 13th in the U Sports national rankings.

Nine-time defending U Sports champion Brock is tied for fifth with McMaster.

This rivalry will perhaps be most competitive in the 59kg class as Marauder Amy Bellavia — the No. 1-ranked wrestler — took down No. 2 Mia Friesen of the Badgers at the Western Open in late January, one week after Friesen won the Guelph Open.

Serena Di Benedetto sits atop the 53kg category for McMaster while Shauna Kuebek is second for Brock in the 76kg category.

No. 7-ranked Western doesn't have any wrestlers ranked in the top three of any weight class, but they do show tremendous depth with five wrestlers ranked in the top five of their respective weight classifications.

Keyln Young of No. 8 Guelph and Emily Duchesne of No. 9 Algoma are ranked second and third respectively in the 50kg weight class, setting up a potential clash in Hamilton.

The 2023 CW championships also get underway this Friday in Edmonton, with the pool of competition being much more clearly defined.

The Golden Bears sit No. 1 in the women's rankings by a large gap, and the men are ranked No. 2.

The University of Calgary and University of Saskatchewan are tied in fourth in men's rankings and the Dinos and Huskies sit second and third, respectively, in the women's rankings.

Robbie Ann Pingal (56kg), Andrea Franko (72kg) and Vianne Rouleau (76kg) — all of Edmonton — sit atop the rankings for the Golden Bears.

Saskatchewan's Sierra Mullin is the lone top-ranked female wrestler for the Huskies in the 50kg, while Erin Geddie of Calgary leads the way in the 82kg category ahead of No. 2 Myah Phillips of Saskatchewan and No. 3 Deanna Eastman of Alberta — the only category that sees three CW wrestlers at the top.

Elias Wile is the only CW male wrestler to sit atop a men's weight classification (72kg).

The Huskies and Dinos both feature six wrestlers ranked in the top five across the 10 different weight categories while the Golden Bears have seven.