School pride was in full force on Tuesday at the annual Yukon Elementary Wrestling Championships as students hit the mats in a competition that offered more than just medals for participants.

Around 210 students from seven elementary schools took part in the event, which aims to give them a sense of belonging and attachment to their individual school.

"For me, it's again active living," said Ted Hupe, co-organizer of the event and principal at Holy Family Elementary School.

"We have kids doing push ups, working out, improving their flexibility, but the big thing for me is kids are getting connected to their school.

They feel like they are a part of a team where they might not otherwise be."

The championship was open to any elementary school in the Yukon and included students in Grade 2 through 7.

Students were divided up into weight classes and wrestled in a round robin format within their pools. There was a separate category for boys and girls.

There was also no maximum or minimum number of students that could participate for each school at the event.

Wrestling matches could be as long as two minutes and participants could win by either total points or by pinning their opponent.

As many as three points were awarded for taking someone down from a standing position, while two points were given for rolling an opponent, and one point for pushing an individual off the mat, escaping a hold or just controlling the match.

All matches were held in the flexihall at the Canada Games Centre.

Points were also awarded for winning a match.

Three points were given to a wrestler if he or she won by pin-fall and two points were given to the winner of any match that went the two-minute distance.

After the conclusion of the round robin, an individual's total points were added up and the top three within a specific weight category were awarded a medal, in order of their final placing.

A one-match playoff was also used in the event of a tie between two wrestlers in position to win either a gold, silver or bronze medal.

There was also a team element at the event, regarding the final standings for each individual school, which were given points for each medal their students won.

All gold medals were worth a total of three points, while silver medals were worth two points and bronze medals were worth one point.

At the end of the competition, total points were added up for each school. The school that finished first won a trophy and banner.

Holy Family ended up with the the most points, winning the banner and trophy for a second year in a row.

Holy Family finished with an impressive 66-point total. The school won 12 gold medals, 12 silver medals and six bronze medals.

Ecole Emilie Tremblay, who competed in the wrestling championship for the first time, came in second with 48 points. E.E.T. finished with nine gold medals, 12 silver medals and nine bronze medals.

In a two-way tie for third, Hidden Valley Elementary School and Elijah Smith Elementary School both totalled 38 points.

Hidden Valley's medal winnings included five gold, eight silver and seven bronze, while Elijah Smith totalled eight gold medals, four silver medals and six bronze medals.

Christ the King Elementary School came in a close fourth with 31 points, which included five gold medals, eight silver medals and seven bronze medals.

Three gold medals, one silver medal and three bronze medals earned Whitehorse Elementary a fifth place finish with 14 points in total.

Takhini Elementary School came in sixth with three silver medals and three bronze medals, which gave the school nine points.

Hupe, who co-organized the event with Peter Harms and Bob Sharp, said there are some positive results to having kids involved with school sports.

"Usually the kids who are on any team don't end up in the office," he said.

"So if I can get half my kids wrestling, I won't see them in the office because they know if they mess up, if they make a wrong choice, they are not going to be allowed to represent their school at the wrestling championships."

He said there are benefits to kids feeling more connected to their schools.

"There are opportunities for the little kids to interact with the older kids," he said.

"So what we do is get more connections with kids, younger kids, older kids and we get teachers working with kids they don't normally teach.

So you get a sense of community through their participation on a wrestling team."

Hupe said it is important for students to make these connections.

"Kids that don't make or refuse to make connections to people in the school, whether it be teachers or other students, tend to drift through school," he said.

"I have found when kids develop relationships with other students and they develop positive relationships with the teachers then they have a stake in it.

They have a stake in their own well-being at school."

Nicola Lazeo-Fairman, 11, showed off her wrestling skills, winning a gold medal in the 37-39-kg weight class.

Lazeo-Fairman finished with a perfect 4-0 record at the competition, which was the third time she has participated at the event.

The gold medal was an all time best for Lazeo-Fairman, who won a bronze medal her first year and then followed that up with a silver medal in 2007.

She said it was a lot of fun competing at the championships and that it was nice to win the gold medal.

"I keep telling the little kids that when I first started, I lost all my matches, like some of them did," Lazeo-Fairman said. "Then one year I got bronze, then silver, then worked my way up to gold."

Lazeo-Fairman, who attends school at Whitehorse Elementary, said winning the gold medal was the best thing she has ever won in the sport.

"I think it is great because it is just fun to have medals and it is fun to go back to school and say, 'Look I'm a girl and I still got a medal'," she said.

"It encourages more girls to join and I think personally there should be more girls because we can do pretty well against some of the Grade 7 boys."

Hannah Milner is in Grade 5 at Whitehorse Elementary. Milner also won gold at the event, which was her second gold medal in her three-year involvement at the event.

She said it felt really good to win the gold medal.

"It's fun to get gold because then people, they say, 'How did you get that?' It's really fun," Milner said. "It's easier than you really think it is."

Milner, 10, said she enjoys taking part in the competition.

"I like so much about it that you can have fun and there is sort of a team part," she said.

"Like the coach that teaches you as you grow up. It is a lot easier for you to learn how to do stuff instead of just learning on your own.

It's fun watching people to encourage you how to do it."

This was the first time Paige Bevilacqua participated at the wrestling championship.

She finished with an impressive 2-0 record, winning both of her matches in about 10 seconds to claim the gold medal.

Bevilacqua, who is in Grade 4 at Whitehorse Elementary, was pleased with placing first in her weight category.

"It feels really good," she said. "I have never won gold before."

Bevilacqua got into wrestling two years ago after her friends suggested that she give the sport a try.

"My friends told me about it and I'm like 'Okay, maybe, because I am small I will be able to win,'" she said.

"And now it feels really cool to be here, standing and winning gold."

She said the best part about winning the gold medal is being proud of her accomplishment. Bevilacqua plans on participating in the tournament again next year.

Peter Jensen, 12, won a silver medal for Hidden Valley.

This was the best finish that Jensen has ever had at the event and he was pleased with his improvement from the two previous years.

"I did pretty good," he said. "I got a silver medal and I only lost one match and that was my first one.

The first time I didn't get a medal and the latest one was bronze and then I got silver, so I am improving."

Although Clayton Mervyn, 12, lost his opening match after it went the two-minute distance, he still managed to pull out a gold medal victory for Hidden Valley.

In his final contest, which was a playoff, Mervyn had to wrestle the only person who beat him on the day. In their second match, Mervyn made no mistake and was able to pin his opponent to finish in first place.

This was his third gold medal at the championships, but Mervyn said placing first this year was more special after losing his first contest.

"I like this medal more than my other ones because I lost the first one, but then I beat the kid after," he said.