Searching for glory: senior Steintrager looks for All-America finish in first year starting
Matt Steintrager came to Central Michigan University with plenty of accolades — but it has taken him longer than most to add more in college.
Along with being a state champion his senior year in high school at Detroit Catholic Central, Steintrager also placed second at Senior Nationals and Junior Nationals.
Like most Central wrestlers, he took a redshirt his first year to get acquainted with collegiate wrestling. However, after a rather successful season competing unattached, Steintrager was unable to secure a starting spot in the Central Michigan lineup with Luke Smith competing for the team at 125 pounds.
A year later, Steintrager again was not able to get into the starting lineup, despite taking fifth at the Michigan State Open. His only two losses in the tournament came to Angel Escobedo of Indiana and Michigan State’s Franklin Gomez, both wrestlers who would later win national titles.
After three years of not cracking the starting lineup, Steintrager took his Olympic redshirt and went through a rough patch academically.
“It was a little demoralizing at times,” he said, “but I constantly picked myself up.” While Steintrager had seen others around him quit the team because of lack of matches, wrestling to him was too important.
“It crossed my mind, and I thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’” he said. “But it was never as strong as the drive to continue. It was never that close.”
Coach Tom Borrelli has seen wrestlers like Steintrager — wrestlers who have great accomplishments coming into college, but cannot quite get into the starting lineup.
“If someone really enjoys the sport and feels that they can accomplish big things regardless of how much they get the opportunity to wrestle, I think it is those guys that stick it out,” he said. “It is the guys who get frustrated about not being the starter right away and don’t really believe in the benefit of hard work that usually end up quitting.”
A CHANCE TO START
While Streintrager admits it was not the best of times for him through the first three seasons, he still wanted to be a part of the CMU wrestling tradition for his last year.
However, just like in previous years, if he wanted to wrestle, he was going to have to earn it. Senior Conor Beebe had switched places in the lineup with Scotti Sentes at 125 pounds, and Steintrager was going to have to beat out the three-time and now four-time NCAA qualifier for a spot.
Borrelli said nothing was given to Steintrager this season. Everything had to be earned.
“He had to really make the varsity because Conor made the decision to go down to 125,” he said. “I really didn’t know who the starter would be.”
But Steintrager took the starting spot and beat Beebe twice in the process, once at the Intrasquad match and the other at Midlands. Steintrager took fourth among heavy competition.
Steintrager said this season just proves why he believed all those years of waiting for his time.
“Sometimes, it was hard, but I pushed through and proved it this year,” he said.
THIS SEASON
The senior quickly moved up the rankings as the season wore on and, after dominating the Mid-American Conference competition while going 8-0 (including a first-place showing at the MAC tournament), Steintrager was given the eighth seed entering the NCAA tournament.
Streintrager won the first round of the tournament Thursday morning. And despite losing in the second round to Penn State’s Brad Pataky, Steintrager is still vying for a third-place finish.
“I always knew that I was good enough to do it (wrestle collegiately),” Steintrager said. “If I would’ve just fallen apart, I would have always been that guy who knew he could have done it, but didn’t.”
