U Sports champion SueAnne Harms leads Saskatchewan Huskies' charge to wrestling nationals

The University of Saskatchewan's women's wrestling team finds itself in a familiar position coming out of the winter break.

For the fourth straight season, the Huskies rank in the top two nationally heading into the first event of the New Year on the Canada West (CW) schedule — the Golden Bears Invitational, set for Saturday in Edmonton.

While Head Coach Daniel Olver's women's team tops the rankings, locked into its yearly battle with the University of Alberta and University of Calgary, the men's team sits in second behind the Golden Bears.

"I'm not too concerned about those rankings at all. Those always change and fluctuate," Olver said. "The way you win a championship is through depth … [It's about] making sure that we have a healthy team coming into the CW championships and U Sports championships that are chomping at the bit to wrestle."

Depth has been the hallmark of both the Saskatchewan men's and women's teams for years, with both teams combining for three silver medals at the last three national tournaments in 2019, 2020 and 2023, and never placing outside of the top five at any of the three events.

More medals could be in the cards for the Huskies at nationals this year in Guelph, Ont., as the men's squad boasts nine wrestlers ranked in the top five in the nation in their respective weight classes, including fourth-year Drake Buechler sitting atop the 61-kilogram weight class.

The women's team is even deeper, with a top-five ranked athlete in each of the 10 weight classes, all the way up to second-year Myah Phillips holding the lead in the 83-kg class.

Also on top of her weight class is fifth-year SueAnne Harms, the reigning national champion in the 53kg class and a gold-medallist at each of the last two CW Championships.

"I want that U Sports [title] in my last year … as well as CW gold," said Harms, who defeated 2023 U Sports Rookie of the Year Serena Di Bennedetto of McMaster in the final last March. "[In] my fifth year, I'm focusing more on the team goals. I would love it if we could go out with a CW gold team title.

"We've got such a great group of rookies coming in this year, and we have a great group of women who have kept on [for years]. We have a leadership group of six women which I've never experienced on a wrestling team, because that elects half of our team. But I honestly think it's working well, where we have the younger leaders and then the older leaders."

Iron sharpens iron

The old adage of iron sharpening iron rings true in the Huskies room, and that has been the case since Harms came to the University of Saskatchewan in 2018, crediting three-time U Sports gold medallist Alex Schell for demonstrating 'unreal grip strength' to her and teaching her the west point manoeuvre.

From there, Harms worked on her craft with former Huskies wrestlers Katie Dutchak and the late Natasha Fox, who passed away in May, in what Harms calls a 'COVID wrestling club' during the pandemic, and has now taken on the role of mentor with her younger teammates.

Beyond the camaraderie built up with her fellow Huskies, Harms views training partners in wrestling as uniquely necessary compared to various other sports.

"Wrestling is an individual sport, but you rely more on your teammates than any other sport that I have played," Harms said. "Hockey, volleyball, basketball ... you can go and shoot 200 pucks before and after practice, which I used to do. You can go work on your volleyball or basketball skills on your own for hours.

While Harms has plenty of experience wrestling against Huskies teammates and alumni alike, as well as familiar CW foes, her goals in the wrestling world — which includes competing in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles — require a more diverse set of opponents.

The Saskatoon native has acquired an abundance of experience wrestling outside of the U Sports bubble over the years.

She credits Fox for dragging her along to wrestle with her in the summer between her first and second year, attending meets such as the junior wrestling championships and Canada Cup, and she most recently attended the Olympic Team Trials alongside Phillips and now-Huskies Assistant Coach Dutchak in December, where she competed against Di Bennedetto in a potential preview of the U Sports final.

"If the ultimate goal is to try to make the Olympic team, you've got to be getting outside of your regular training environment, getting some touch points on some other athletes, and getting feedback from other coaches," Olver said. "You get that and come back to the room, and then we work through what's going to work and what isn't going to work.

"[When they come back] there's a lot more experience coming back with them … But also, it's going to support their training partners with some knowledge that they want to share with them."

Whether or not that experience in the room helps bring Saskatchewan its first women's or men's national titles in program history this March, it will undoubtedly help lay the foundation for Huskies' wrestling hopefuls in the future.

Around the U Sports world:

• The Trinity Western women's volleyball team picked up where it left off before the winter break, taking down Mount Royal twice in games on Friday and Saturday, each by a score of 3-1. The pair of wins moved the Spartans to 12-0 on the season, as they remain the only undefeated women's team in the nation.
• Two U Sports hockey teams navigated the month-long winter break to keep their perfect seasons alive. In the women's game, Jordyn Verbeek picked up her third shutout of the season as the Concordia Stingers blanked the Carleton Ravens 7-0 on Sunday to improve its record to 14-0-0.
• On the men's side, the University of New Brunswick Reds topped StFX 6-2 on Friday, and followed it up with a 7-3 win over Dalhousie Saturday to move to a staggering 20-0-0. Second-year forward Michael Petizian led the way with three goals and five points in the pair of wins as the Reds have now scored at least five goals in 16 of its 20 wins.

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