Last year, the Orono wrestling room was quiet—and not in a good way. The team finished with only three wins, a tough season for any program, But this year, everything completely shifted. They more than tripled their wins, and hitting 11 in what is a program first. You can actually feel the difference when you walk into the wrestling room; it wasn’t just about toughing it out till the end of the season but it was about the drive to win over and over.
At the heart of it all is senior Brett Kiecker. He went 46-0 and held the #1 state ranking throughout the whole season, despite finishing 6th in the state tournament. But his drive and resilience have shaped the entire program. He’s become a “North Star” for the younger wrestlers.
“The new freshmen on the team are fun to have because they are not always so serious.” Kiecker said.
When the hardest worker in the room is learning from the younger kids and is also the leader, that energy spreads fast.
You see it in Emery Soukup, undefeated at 11-0 for the girls, and in the guys like Dash Tietz at 40-0, along with Abe Whiting and Magnus Isabel, who grind every day. Even as Brett heads to Augsburg, his impact will stay with Orono wrestling for years.
A lot of sports programs are “win at all costs,” which usually just burns athletes out. Orono is different because the coaches focus on people first. They’ve made the wrestling room a haven. By telling the kids to “focus on scoring points and having fun” rather than obsessing over the scoreboard, they’ve taken the fear out of the sport. It’s why football and lacrosse players like Nick and Daniel Bremer joined for the “grit” but stayed for the mentorship.
What makes this team feel real are the rituals. It’s not just robots drilling takedowns. It’s the contrast in the room before a meet, with Alec Peterson, DJ Leuthner, and Tae Reidy blasting rap to get their heart rates up, Abraham Whiting and Dash Tietz finding a quiet corner to visualize the win, and Samson Hultmann’s specific “pineapple-soaked apples coated in cinnamon” routine.
“It’s delicious and a great way to get my energy up before a match.” Hultmann said.
Behind those wins are hundreds of hours of boring, repetitive work that most people never see. Bennett Sherck spent 20 hours on Sterling wheel, half snap, to dump setup, Sutton Williams spent two months mastering a High C, and Nash Erstad has been working on his fireman’s carry for a year and a half.
From the seniors hitting 50-win milestones to the freshmen like DJ and Oliver being called the future.
“The team isn’t just winning matches, they’re building a legacy,” head coach Jeff Wichern said.
