Dylan and Kyle Yamniuk might not have hit the medals at the Wrestling Canada Under-17/Under-19 National Championships, but both were able to find victory in their early round matches – and the experience of competing at such a high-level event will most certainly be its own reward.
The Moose Jaw duo took to the mats at nationals in Fredericton, N.B. this past weekend, competing with Advanced Wrestling Academy out of Regina, with Dylan seeing action in the U-19 71-kilogram class and Kyle doing battle in the U-17 60-kg division.
Dylan got off to an impressive start in his draw, defeating Wesley Smith of the Calgary Junior Dinos by fall in 2:11 and then taking only 1:34 to defeat John Moncrieff of Winnipeg’s Schewa Wrestling and advancing to the quarter-finals. He ran into a familiar face in his next bout, Jakob Dormaar of Saskatoon Junior Huskies, and dropped a 10-0 technical fall.
That dropped Yamniuk to the repechage, where he lost his bronze medal quarter-final match to Edmonton Wrestling Club’s Aiden Clarke by technical fall.
Dormaar would go on to claim the bronze medal, with Prince Albert’s Cole Sanderson winning silver.
Kyle Yamniuk didn’t have as much luck as his older brother, as after receiving a first-round bye he dropped a 6-0 decision to Guru Gobin Singh Wrestling Club’s Humraj Sandhar out of Abbotsford, B.C.
Yamniuk would win his first match in the bronze medal draw by technical fall 10-0 over Caleb Wessel of Toronto’s Team Discipline but would drop a 10-0 fall to Julian Kato of Durham, Ont.’s Team Impact. Kato would go on to win the fifth-place match.
