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McNutt and McCallum claim wrestling gold for Western

London, Ontario, CANADA

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Photo by - Ray Takahashi

Terri McNutt (UWO) holding a pin position (head and arm) on Liz Martindale (Brock) in
51 kg FINAL at 2006 Ontario University Wrestling Championships, Thunder Bay , February 18th.

The 2006 Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Wrestling Championships were held on Saturday, February 18th in the city of Thunder Bay on the campus of Lakeahead University at the J. Sanders Fieldhouse. This was the first time that the OUA Championships were held in Ontario's northern most city where this weekend the temperatures reached a frigid minus twenty-five (-25 C) degrees celcius. Despite the cold temperatures outside, the wrestling competition was hotly contested by the seven Ontario Universities which took part in 10 men's and 8 women's weight clases.

Terri McNutt, the captain of the University of Western Ontario women's Varsity Wrestling Team won her fourth straight OUA title pinning Brock University, Liz Martindale in the 51 kg final. She capped off an undefeated four year career against OUA opponents by leading the mustang women to a 2nd place team finish." Terri is having a great wrestling year and is on track to win the Canadian University wrestling tittle this year" said Ray Takahashi, head coach of the Mustang Varsity wrestling team.

Teammate, Jill McCallum took gold at 63 kg beating host team favourite and Junior world bronze medalist, Tash Eady of Lakehead University in the final. McCallum, a London Saunders graduate and member of the CIS championship UWO women’s rugby team showed strong composure throughout the tournament. "Jill had to re-group after dropping the first round against Lindsay McDonald (Brock) in the semi-finals but won a close match to advance," said assistant coach, Josip Mrkoci. "In the final, Eady got frustrated and couldn’t control her aggression when she was penalized for retaliating. Jill kept her composure and wrestled a smart tactical match to win."

Along with the two gold medals, the mustangs women wrestlers also won a silver medal by co-captain, Jess Fitzgerald (67 kg) and two bronze medals by Jennifer Nguyen (55 kg) and Lauren MacDonald (82 kg).

Western finished with 45 team points behind defending champions Brock University (54 points). Guelph University was third with 36 points and host Lakehead University placed fourth with 35 points. The five women wrestling mustang medallists qualify for the 2006 Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) Championships at Brock University in the city of St. Catherines on Mar 2-5.

Terri McNutt enters the CIS championships ranked number one at 51 kg having defeated Canada West champion, Sarah White of SFU earlier in the season at Guelph Open Tournament.

Women’s Standings

Brock University - 54

University of Western Ontario - 45

Guelph University - 36

Lakehead University - 35

McMaster University - 21

Queen’s University - 10

Photo by - Ray Takahshi

Jill McCallum (UWO) wins her match at 2006 OUA Championships in the FINALS of 63 kg
weight class against Tasha Eady of Lakehead University.

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