OFSAA 2005 Article
Rejuvenated Ferrier golden once again by Steve LeBlanc. The Canadian Champion (Milton): Tuesday, March 8, 2005
Wins second straight OFSAA title to lead EC wrestlers to team silver
The Spartans’ championship dynasty may be over, but their record-breaking ways live on.
Finally de-throned by fellow powerhouse Hagersville after an unprecedented five straight OFSAA team titles, E.C. Drury’s wrestlers had to settle for silver this time around at the Brampton Centre for Sports and Entertainment.
But second-place honours weren’t exactly tough to take.
For one, the Spartans headed into OFSAA with a smaller contingent and were never really favoured to win again. And two, their collective silver set a new record for consecutive team medals — eclipsing the old mark of seven they’d shared with Hamilton’s Bishop Ryan.
“No gold this year, but I can’t be any more satisfied with the end results,” said head coach Larry Jaroslawski after an adversity-rich tournament that included him being presented a leadership in sports award from OFSAA.
Drury capped the roller-coaster ride by taking four of five matches in the finals Friday to edge Monsignor Doyle of Kitchener by three points.
The biggest of those victories belonged to Gary Ferrier, who upstaged a previously unbeaten Kyle Bershantsky of Sarnia with a 12-2 superiority decision to punctuate a 5-0 run and become the Spartans’ first two-time OFSAA champ.
The win was all the more sweet given that the 64-kg. grappler had been struggling this year and last month failed to medal at provincials for the first time in his career.
“It feels great. This was my best tournament of the season and fortunately it happened to come at the perfect time,” remarked a jubilant and physically-drained Ferrier, just moments after his golden triumph.
Jaroslawski said a return to his bread-and-butter leg attacks and move up to the 64-kg. ranks combined to bring Ferrier back to top form.
“Gary’s back to using his speed, and when he just keeps shooting nobody can stop him.”
Employing his trademark all-out approach to the mat, Ferrier grabbed an early lead in the finals and put things away near the end of the first round — scoring about a handful of takedowns along the way.
Drury may well have made it a clean sweep in the finals had it not been for a scoring miscue that inadvertantly gave Kevin Iwasa-Madge’s early points to competitor Derek Anderson of Central Elgin in one of two battles for bronze.
The Spartans’ 51-kg. OFSAA returnee wound up getting pinned with just 11 seconds remaining, but as Jaroslawski points out, the early error “completely changed the way he wrestled the rest of the way.”
Moments later, Alan Moffat would give Drury its first of two individual medals of the day, finishing an impressive 7-1 campaign by blanking Ajax’s Trent Boughner 2-0 for 57.5 kg. bronze.
“This is great, it was definitely my toughest match all year,” he said afterwards.
When asked if Moffat had been expected to medal in what’s considered a particularly tough decision, assistant coach Simon Vanellis explained, “We knew he could, but he’s definitely turned it up in the past month, put it that way.”
Peter Leaman (72 kg.) and Kyle Shermet (77 kg.) would cement the Spartans’ silver-medal finish with wins in fifth-place competition in the early evening Friday, with OFSAA rookie Shermet’s 6-2 decision over Scott Moore of St. Matthews locking up second place.
Leaman looked poised to reach the gold-medal round until a controversial match against eventual champ Ryan McCracken of Kenner ended in an overtime loss in the semifinals.
Also placing in the top 12 with 3-2 records were Nick Ronan and Carl Chan, whose title hopes were dashed with the buzzer sounding just as he was about to tie the score in a 2-1 heartbreaker.
Chris Flanigan, Ranbir Hans and Steven Adams rounded out the record-setting squad.
The Spartans now head overseas, first for a meet in Germany later this week and then for two tournaments in Namibia, Africa over the March break.
Leaman, Shermet, Ronan and Iwasa-Madge will then represent Milton at the nationals in St. John’s, Newfoundland next month.