Tamanawis team wins fourth Consecutive Wrestling Provincial Championship; Indo-Canadian wrestles including girl wrestlers win big titles. Tanya Dhillon of Semiahmoo was awarded the Female Outstanding Match of the tournament, and Gurshar Johal of Rick Hansen was awarded the Male Outstanding Match of the tournament
For the fourth consecutive year, the Tamanawis Wildcats team has been crowned the BC School Sports Boys Wrestling Champions.
The provincial championships, which took place this past weekend at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, is the premier event for high school wrestling each year.
“All of the top schools take part in this and so it’s amazing to see what Tamanawis was able to accomplish for a fourth time,” said Rob Rai, Director of School and Community Connections with Surrey Schools.
“A huge congratulations to the Tamanawis Wildcats and all of their coaches and staff,” said Supt. Mark Pearmain. “It’s been incredible seeing these young wrestlers continually up their game year after year and the district could not be more proud to bring home the banner once again.”
Founded in 2014 by Tamanawis alumni and brothers Jessy and Paul Sahota, the Tamanawis boys wrestling team has become one of the most dominant in Western Canada. After winning this year’s tournament with a 27-point lead over runner-up W.J. Mouat of Abbotsford (94-71), the team is showing no signs of slowing down.
“Last year they went head-to-head with W.J. Mouat and won the championship with just a one-point lead,” explained Rai. “This year Tamanawis came back with some big improvements and that was absolutely reflected in their points lead.”
For Rai, this year’s performance is just another example of the fantastic work being done by the Sahota brothers.
“Not only did they come back to found this team and give back to their community, but they created a culture of champions that’s brought home four consecutive provincial banners,” said Rai. “Provincial banners are very hard to come by and so for them to have accomplished this much in such a short amount of time is mindboggling.”
This year’s tournament was also an emotional one for the Wildcats as the team recently lost one of its own, Taren Lal, who passed away in a car accident in early January.
“That was something that was in the back of their minds,” said Rai. “It was something that motivated them and they dedicated this victory to him.”
In total, nine Tamanawis wrestlers placed top-six in their respective categories:
GOLD: Karanjot Dhillon (45kg), Jastej Mundi (90kg), Rohit Bal (78kg)
SILVER: Manjot Sangha(130kg), Justin Lalli (84kg)
BRONZE: Mustafa Nasir (60kg)
Fourth-place finish:Heyton Bal (84kg), Yuvraj Virk (110kg)
In total, 36 Indo-Canadians were placed in the top 6.
WJ Mouat was in 2nd place and Queen Elizabeth Secondary was earned the third place. All these teams have Indo-Canadian wrestlers.
