King College (Bristol, TN) wins Harry Geris Memorial Women's Wrestling Duals Team Title!

I would like to thank Josip Mrkoci, Ray Takahashi and the entire Western Wrestling Team for making the Harry Geris Memorial Women’s Wrestling Duals a premier event.  The tournament was held at Alumni Hall with concert venue type seating.  Eight teams from all across North America (Canadian Teams: McMaster, Brock, Simon Fraser, Western, University of Albert, American Teams: Lindenwood University, King College, Missouri Valley College) were there to do battle for top honours.  Some of the American teams made a sixteen hour trip to London, Ontario, Canada just for the sake of friendly competition.

The first whistle blew at 9 am triggering the battles to begin.  The tournament was set in a dual meet format pitting two teams against each other on each of three mat surfaces, facilitating a speedy draw-system.  This format was easy for the crowd to follow, and presented each of the athletes seven matches to compete in, which is more than other formats allow. The athletes were each in peak form, providing the spectators a great showing of technical abilities.  The crowd could be heard outside of the auditorium as they cheered for their favourite teams and witnessed some exciting pins, catapulting their teams to a win.  The finals proved exciting when an American and Canadian team went head-to-head and remained a close match up to the end.

Congratulations go to King College from Bristol Tennessee for taking home the championship trophy after a hard fought battle with Simon Fraser University from British Columbia.

My father would have loved this event, as it contained some of the best athletes in North America.  The Tournament ran smoothly, and remained exciting from start to finish.  The Geris family is proud to have Dad’s name associated with this event.   Again Thanks go out to Ray Takahashi (Dad’s 1976 Olympic Team-mate) and Josip Mrkoci (long-time friend and fellow wrestling enthusiast) for bringing this event to Canada for the first time.  Looking forward to next year!