{"id":62930,"date":"2026-03-10T13:26:01","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=62930"},"modified":"2026-03-10T13:26:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T16:26:01","slug":"enfields-lawson-wins-u-sport-national-wrestling-gold-for-mcmaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=62930","title":{"rendered":"Enfield\u2019s Lawson wins U Sport national wrestling gold for McMaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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ENFIELD:<\/strong> Years of hard work on the mat paid off in a big way for Luken Lawson of Enfield, who captured the U Sports national championship in the 76-kilogram division while competing for McMaster University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Lawson, the moment the referee signaled the end of the championship match was something he won\u2019t soon forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy first thought was pure excitement,\u201d he told The Laker News. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight after pinning my opponent, I jumped up and ran right to my coach\u2019s corner and jumped onto my coach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the initial celebration, the significance of the moment quickly set in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy second thought was a huge sense of pride within myself,\u201d said Lawson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the past the finals have always been hard for me mentally and hard to get over those nerves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Before stepping onto the mat for the final, Lawson carried a tobacco pouch in his left hand, something that holds cultural significance to him as an Indigenous athlete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI dropped that pouch on the edge of the mat before stepping on,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat sense of pride goes further than within myself, but it is my pride in being from a smaller province and being able to win a national medal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lawson\u2019s gold medal capped off a long journey that included earlier success at the national level. He previously won U SPORTS bronze medals in 2023 at 68 kg and in 2025 at 76 kg, along with three silver medals at the OUA championships, the provincial qualifiers for U SPORTS.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Luken Lawson in action. (Aaron Hilson\/James Mirabelli photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Balancing wrestling with the demands of an engineering degree at McMaster made the achievement even more meaningful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis medal is a physical and public way of expressing all the hard work that people don\u2019t see,\u201d Lawson said. \u201cThe two sessions per day, the extra workouts, runs, offseason work building muscle, getting over injuries, and balancing all that with an engineering degree.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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His path to gold was anything but easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his opening match of the tournament, Lawson found himself trailing by nine points with just two-and-a-half minutes remaining. If his opponent had scored again, the match would have ended early.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Complicating matters further, Lawson had also suffered a knee injury during the bout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI remember my coach telling me, \u2018You\u2019re either hurt, or this is your match,\u2019\u201d Lawson recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn that moment I thought about all those practices and knew that this was my match. I just needed the next move and then the next.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That belief carried him through the tournament and into the final, where he secured the national title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe trust I put in myself that whole tournament was a huge breakthrough for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Following the victory, Lawson was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from back home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRight when I stepped off the mat and checked my phone it was filled with messages from friends, family, and old coaches,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was quite overwhelming at first because I didn\u2019t fully realize how many people had an impact on me and how many people were still supporting me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the messages, he said, shared a common theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe most common responses were people saying how proud they were because they noticed the hard work I have always put in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lawson also credited the many coaches who helped shape his career along the way, including one whose instruction directly played a role in the championship moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe move that won me the match was a move I learned from being coached by Morgan Marchand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he reflects on the milestone victory, Lawson said he remains grateful for the support system around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would just like to thank my family for making me the athlete and person I am, and all my old coaches who have had a huge impact on my life,\u201d said Lawson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ENFIELD: Years of hard work on the mat paid off in a big way for Luken Lawson of Enfield, who captured the U Sports national championship in the 76-kilogram division while competing for McMaster University. For Lawson, the moment the referee signaled the end of the championship match was something he won\u2019t soon forget. \u201cMy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[10509,390,4036,10510,4698,7823,679],"class_list":["post-62930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-champion","tag-enfield","tag-luken-lawson","tag-mcmaster-university","tag-oua","tag-usports","tag-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}