She’s one tough Angel
Avondale 15-year-old pins national champ from Ontario for province’s first Canada Games medal
The volunteer in the orange shirt spoke in amazement.
“I’ve been here all week and it’s been intense, but never as intense as that,” she said, nodding toward mat D in the Axworthy Health and Recplex, the 2017 Canada Summer Games wrestling venue on the University of Winnipeg campus. “What just happened there?” What had happened was that on the second-last day of competition of the two-week Games, Newfoundland and Labrador had been just guaranteed its first medal.
The guarantee was delivered by a high school student from Avondale, 15-year-old Angel Hiltz-morrell, who won her women’s 84kg semifinal with a dramatic a pin of defending Canadian juvenile champion Sydney Lewis of Ontario.
That put Hiltz-morrell into a Friday-night gold-medal match against Manitoba champion Jessica Rabet, who lost to Lewis at the juvenile nationals in April.
(The result of the gold-medal final was unavailable at The Telegram’s Friday deadline, but can be found online at the www.thetelegram.com)
Whatever the result of Friday’s final, the aftermath will have had to be something to top the emotional level reached during and after Hiltz-morrell’s semifinal win Friday morning.
It was a tumult of noise during the match, and tears all around after she was awarded the pin.
Hiltz-morrell was immediately overcome. She cried, as did her teammates. Her coach, Noel Strapp, could hardly speak. Even Newfoundland and Labrador chef de mission Rod Snow, a four-time World Cup rugby player, was choked up after the
match.
“I knew it meant a lot to a lot of people,” said Hiltz-morrell. “I had tried to put that all out of my mind beforehand and just focus on what I had to do, but I was aware of everything that was going on.
“I couldn’t help it. But I tried to keep it all in.”
If she had had been holding back anything, it was unleashed during the match against Lewis, who has represented Canada internationally.
After falling behind on points 2-0, Hiltz-morrell tied the score, only to go down 6-2 when Lewis came close to achieving a pin. But that turned out to be the turning point as Hiltz-morrell managed to extricate herself from trouble and moments later, with her teammates roaring encouragement, achieved a reversal of roles, getting Lewis on her back and earning the pin her Ontario opponent could not get.
“I did,” answered Hiltz-morrell, when asked if she felt it had turned into a pin-or-nothing bout.
“I knew when she had me on my back for that couple of seconds that I had to get out and get her down.”
Strapp said Hiltz-morrell’s ability to get out of such deep trouble was a rare feat in the sport.
“You know, even if she had lost that match, it would have been such an accomplishment for her to be able to get out of that pin,” said Strapp, a Roncalli teacher, who coaches Hiltz-morrell in both rugby and wrestling.
“This girl (Lewis) won nationals this year … best in the country. She had Angel on her back and 99 per cent of the time, that has to lead to a pin. But Angel scrambled her way out of it, got back on her feet and pinned her. “It was amazing.” Besides being a high-level athlete, the daughter of Jackie Hiltz and Shane Morrell is also a student with a 90 overall average.
Strapp, a teacher at Roncalli, said that and natural athletic ability have combined to make the young student, who came to wrestling four years ago, a force on the mats.
“She had a skill-set that I had never seen before,” he said. “It’s very rare to see someone with her size and strength who is so light on her feet.
“She’s at 84 kilograms, and has the skill and agility of kids in my program who are at 50 kilograms.
“Plus, she has that intelligence. And being that wellrounded helps with the mental toughness that you need in this sport. You need that just as much as physical ability and she has both.”
What Hiltz-morrell didn’t have was high-level experience. While Lewis has had plenty — the Thunder Bay athlete is a three-time Canadian cadet/ juvenile champ — this is Hiltzmorrell’s first major national event.
“I didn’t let that psyche me out, or at least I tried not to,” she said. “I didn’t want to be thinking about anything like that once I got to the mat.”
After all, she had plenty on her mind, considering whatever weight of expectation she was carrying, what with Newfoundland and Labrador showing a 0-0-0 line in the Games medal standings and the province’s wrestlers having been knocked of medal competition in team events.
“We didn’t reach our expectations as a (wrestling) team that we thought we would reach here, and I think the kids were down about that,” said Strapp. “But right now, this overshadows all that.
“It was so amazing to watch their reaction after Angel won.”
Hiltz-morrell admits she didn’t sleep much Thursday night in anticipation of her Friday morning match — “I tried, but it was hard” — and attempted to spend her waking moments visualizing how she would take on Lewis after reviewing tape of the Ontario champion’s matches.
But the visualization kept coming back to one thing.
“I just kept seeing my armed raised (in victory),” she said.
That’s exactly what happened, and on Newfoundland and Labrador Day at the Games, no less
Every province and territory gets its “day” during Canada Games. On Friday, it was Newfoundland’s turn.
“The first thing Angel said to me this morning was, ‘It’s Newfoundland Day!’ said Strapp.
“I told her it was a good omen, but really, I think what happened here was mostly about her.”