Bronze at Provincials
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Brayden Ambo, 17, is taking his wrestling to another level. Again.
“I decided to take wrestling more serious this year,” said Ambo during Wednesday night’s Ox-El Wrestling Club practice at Tillsonburg’s Glendale High School.
Ambo said much the same last year, and backed it up with a return to OFSAA. More recently, he medaled at the Ontario Juvenile Provincials two weeks ago.
"I felt way better this year going into TVRA," Ambo had said last February on his way to the 2012 WOSSAA wrestling championships. "Last year (2011) I honestly wasn't ready, but this year I knew what I needed to do. I felt 100 per cent. Last year I wasn't physically or mentally ready. I kind of got overconfident, so I didn't really work as hard during the season.
“This year, yeah, I feel really good,” Ambo added, en route to the 2012 high school provincial championships.
He spent much of the summer of 2012 ‘on a couch’ recuperating from a motocross accident. By the time the current wrestling season rolled around in November, he was back on track.
“I got on a program, improved my diet, started weight training… I really stepped it up this year. I keep wanting to improve, so it’s motivation for me. Especially since the high school wrestling stopped, you really have to have the personal motivation to keep going and be more fit.
“I had really wanted to work hard during the summer and do off-season training, so as soon as I got the ‘ok’ I got into it and starting working hard. I felt good coming into the season.”
The extra effort paid off at the Ontario Juvenile Provincials, for 16-17 year olds, at Brock University, St. Catharines, Feb. 2-3.
Wrestling in a 69 kg division, Ambo won a bronze medal. He was 5th last year at the Ontario Juveniles in 63 kg.
“So I moved up a weight class, but I improved on my place. And there was also more competition this year because they took away a weight class (66 kg).”
Ambo had competed at the Junior Provincials a week earlier in 66 kg.
“At Juveniles they wanted the same weight classes as the Canada Summer Games.”
The Juvenile Provincials were used as a qualifier for the Ontario’s Canada Summer Games Trials. Ambo was awarded the ‘third rung’ in the ladder system.
“I wrestled pretty good. It’s kind of hard when the high school wrestling isn’t going on. So it was pretty good considering the lack of matches. Normally I’d probably have at least 20 matches (going into provincials), this year I had maybe seven.”
Ambo lost in three rounds in his semifinal.
“It was a really close match. He got me in the first round, then I got him in the second round. And then in the third he beat me by two points, so it was pretty intense. A couple mistakes caused me to lose that, but I’ll learn from it and hopefully next time I beat him at the Canada Summer Games Trials.”
It was risk versus reward in the third round.
“I was pressuring the out-of-bounds. The thing is… if you’re going to pressure it, he might throw you, and he ended up throwing me.”
With similar weights, ages, and experience, the difference between winning and losing can be more mental than physical, said Ambo.
“Basically being mentally ready, knowing you can win out there and stay strong the whole time. When you’re under pressure, that’s when you can break down sometimes, when you’re technique isn’t flowing. Once you’ve got the experience, you should know that you’re mentally ready – you’ve put in the work and that makes it happen.
“I’m preparing for Nationals right now, that’s in April (Saskatoon). I missed it last year, but I’m definitely going this year. I went in Grade 10, too.”
To help prepare, the Ox-El team is planning to go to a Syracuse, NY meet. And one in Hagersville.
“I might go to a couple practices at London-Western, too, to get some different wrestling partners.”
At Trials, May 3-5, Ambo needs to beat the fourth-rung wrestler, then the second rung, then win a best-of-three against the first rung of the ladder.
Since Summer Games wrestling only happen every four years, for 15-17 year olds, Ambo is on the high end of the age scale.
“It’s for 95-98s and I’m 1995. So it ended up being at a good time for me, I’m one of the oldest in that group.”
At the Ontario Junior Provincials, for 18-19 year olds, at Bishop Ryan High School, Hamilton on the weekend of Jan. 26, Ambo placed 5th in his 66 kg division.
The Grade 12 Glendale High School student defeated a wrestler from Thunder Bay (Lakehead University), then lost a three-round match – tied 4-4 in the third round.
He followed it up pinning a Newtonbrook SS (York) wrestler who had finished second at OFSAA last year. His next match, a first-year Brock University wrestler and three-time national champion and OFSAA champion, was a loss.
“Then I went to the fifth-sixth place match and beat that guy.”
“But he was ‘this close’ to making the final,” said Ox-El coach Lloyd Renken. “Which would have been against the kid he lost to in the semifinals at OFSAA last year, who won OFSAA. He’s at Western (University) now.”
Ambo is planning to return for a fifth year at GHS next fall.
“Hopefully school sports are back, but who knows.”