By Blaise Anton

The two step out on the mat with hearts pounding and adrenaline rushing. They shake hands and size up their opponent, waiting to hear the sharp blast of a whistle. Shortly, a grueling struggle will begin, each battling for points, takedowns and pins. Both wanting to end up with the referee raising their hand and another win.

Junior Jack Streicher has been wrestling since kindergarten when he attended a pee wee kids practice at Kanelane High School in Illinois. Now on the Mount Vernon Wrestling team, he has teammates who are friends in and out of practice. In addition to the team, his coaches are great role models and while practices are no doubt difficult and physically demanding, his coaches help him learn to become better at the sport.

This team of coaches and wrestlers work in more than just regularly scheduled practices during the season. To ensure that he and his team continue to grow in the off season, each year they travel to Decorah, Iowa, to Luther’s wrestling camp.
Here, Streicher and his team spend four days competing in dual meets, individual tournaments, technique sessions, and team building activities. The days are full of wrestling and exercise and are typically quite difficult. But even given the difficulty Streicher values the experience on the whole.

“I go to hang out with my team, and wrestle other high schoolers nationwide. I also do it for the food,” Streicher said with a grin.

While Streicher has had many experiences at Luther, he said his favorite memory about the camp, even his whole wrestling career was being knocked unconscious in a match, earning him a ride in an ambulance. Most people would find this to be a scary ordeal, but to Streicher it somehow made its way up to his top wrestling moment.

Streicher says he enjoys the sport because of the individual aspect, because of the fact that everything he accomplishes is on him. He said his current goal is to work his way up to being more offensive. “Before a match I tell myself, be on your offense” said Streicher, “I’m gonna control, and make the moves.”

Streicher will continue to his wrestling career as a junior this year, still working to improve and become a better athlete. As last years 106 pounder, Streicher proves that it is not the size of the dog in the fight, but the amount of fight in the dog.