UFV Wrestlers Including Amtoj Dhaliwal Climb The Podium At Dinos Invitational

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ABBOTSFORD – The University of the Fraser Valley wrestling team brought home a trio of individual medals from the season-opening Dinos Invitational in Calgary on the weekend.

Brad Hildenbrandt (men’s 120 kg) and Ashley Coupal (women’s 48 kg) earned silver medals, each winning three of their four matches. Amtoj Dhaliwal (men’s 82 kg) also posted a 3-1 record en route to a bronze medal.

“Great start to the season for us to build off of,” said Arjan Bhullar, who serves as co-head coach of the Cascades wrestling program alongside Raj Virdi. “We’ve got a young group but they stepped up today and showed great maturity which is always good to see as coaches.

“Brad had a great opportunity to win a gold for our program as the leader of our men’s team – he came away with the silver and knows he’s knocking on the door to sit atop the podium. Amtoj was phenomenal for

a first year kid, we will look to build off of this. Ashley did a great job pinning every one of her opponents to get herself into the gold medal final. She lost to a girl who is a national champion for our country outside of the university system (Natasha

Kramble of Saskatoon Wrestling Club). We look forward to our next tournament south of the border.”

The Cascades wrestlers are back in action next weekend at the Mike Clock Open, hosted by Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore.

Also competing for UFV at the Dinos Invitational were Hasseeb Javed (men’s 61 kg, fourth place), Karla Godinez Gonzalez (women’s 51 kg, fifth place), Kamil Golowko (men’s 120 kg, sixth place) and Marko Kolobara (men’s 76 kg). Javed and Godinez Gonzalez had particularly promising performances, each posting three wins and two losses.