Four wrestlers that help form the core of a University of Saskatchewan Huskie wrestling program that saw second place finishes from both their men’s and women’s teams at the U SPORTS National Championships last season have been recognized by Wrestling Canada.
Carson Lee, Hunter Lee, Berit Johnson and Logan Sloan have all been announced as members of the Wrestling Canada NextGen program for 2020-21.
“This means we are moving in the right direction and doing the right things with our athletes and our program,” said Huskies head coach Daniel Olver. “For the athletes this reflects their work ethic day in and day out and is a sign of positive development for Huskie wrestling.”
Between the four of them they won two gold and two silver medals at the Canada West Championships in 2019-20, with the three medals earned by the men helping their team to a conference banner for the first time since 2015-16.
At nationals Carson Lee, Hunter Lee and Sloan all earned gold while Johnson finished with a silver medal. The second place finish for the women’s team was their best national placing in program history, while for the men it was just the third time they achieved second-best in the country.
Internationally Carson Lee, Hunter Lee and Johnson all represented Canada at the Junior World Championships in Tallinn, Estonia.
The four have also been prolific when it comes to awards. Both Sloan and Carson Lee have the trifecta of Canada West, U SPORTS and Huskie Athletics’ Male Rookie of the Year honours to their names while Hunter Lee has twice been a nominee for Huskie Athletics’ Male Athlete of the Year.
The athletes are broken into Tier 1 and Tier 2. The eight wrestlers who make up the Tier 1 list are Jade Dufour, Hannah Taylor, Tianna Kennett, Ana Godinez, Hunter Lee, Alexander Moore, Aly Barghout, and Nishan Randhawa.
Dufour, Taylor, and Kennett each captured bronze medals at the 2019 U23 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Godinez and Lee took home bronze medals from the 2019 Junior World Championships in Estonia.
WCL’s NextGen Program is focused towards wrestlers trending five to eight years out from an Olympic Podium. This program, led by NextGen coaches Carol Huynh and Kimin Kim, will be supported by the WCL Sport Science / Sport Medical Team Leads.
They will direct regional Canadian Sport Institute practitioners working with the NextGen athletes in providing group education and any WCL approved targeted gap strategies for nutrition, strength and conditioning, physiology, sport psychology and health and wellness. On mat technical and tactical development will be implemented by the personal coaches and NextGen coaches with recommendations from WCL performance analyst, David Lopez.
The NextGen Tier 2 wrestlers are:
Karla Godinez
Dejah Slater
Jayd Davis
Victoria Seal
Shauna Kuebeck
Alexia Sherland
Ellise Daynes
Amy Bellavia
Alexia Seal
Berit Johnson
Amber Wiebe
Amanda Savard
Laurence Beauregard
Marco Palermo
Richard Deschatelets
Ikjyot Randhawa
Daniel Coles
Carson Lee
Patrik Leder
Karan Dhillon
Logan Sloan
Connor McNeice
Brayden Todd
Callum McNeice
Ty Bridgwater
Jeremy Poirier
Magnus McCrackin