The York University Lions men's wrestling team finished in fifth place at the Western Open meet at Western University in London, Ont., on Saturday (Jan. 24).

Greg Pierzchala (Barrie, Ont.) recorded his second straight podium finish of 2015 with a bronze medal in the 76kg weight class. In the second round of the main draw, he was defeated 10-0 by Chris Laverick, a member of the Canadian senior national team. But he bounced back to reach the final of the back draw with three straight dominant matches. He defeated McMaster's Patrick Morrison and Ilya Kreynin of Toronto by the same 10-0 scores, then took out Lakehead's Cesar Fleurant 4-0 to advance to the final, where he defeated Laverick to finish third.

Zach Werheid (Newcastle, Ont.) also won a medal, finishing second in the 100kg division. He was defeated by Kyle Bonk-Dann of Western 10-0.

Amir Bagheri Zadeh Langari (Toronto), Ali Koca (Richmond Hill, Ont.) and Tristan Nurse (Thornhill, Ont.) each just missed out on a podium finish with fourth-place results in the 61kg, 120kg and 54kg divisions, respectively. 

Bagheri Zadeh went 1-2 in his draw, highlighted by a 10-0 victory over Nick Xiang from Western. Among his four matches, Koca won 8-0 over Prince Edoh from Ryerson and 6-3 over Ahmed Ramadan from McMaster, and Nurse went 1-3, with his victory coming over teammate Edward Martin (Thornhill, Ont.), who finished fifth.

In the women's competition, Urshian Khalid (Mississauga, Ont.) also just missed out on a top-three finish with a fourth-place showing in the 63kg class. Her best match with a 10-0 victory over Anna Ernst from STCC.

Also competing was Colleen Semple (Brampton, Ont.) in the 59kg division, where she finished in sixth place. Her best result was a 10-0 win over Julie Quirke from NLAWA.

The next varsity competition for the Lions is in three weeks, when the team will travel to Sudbury, Ont., for the OUA championships on Saturday, Feb. 14.