Keith Sulzer wouldn’t mind if wrestling rankings incorporated strength of competition.
A sophomore in the 141-pound weight class, his opposition is brutal. The Big Ten features the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 ranked wrestlers in that weight class. Sulzer’s not too shabby himself. He’s the 15th-ranked wrestler in the country and has amassed a 16-7 record, despite the conference having five wrestlers ranked higher than him in his weight class.
Rather than complain, Sulzer relishes the competition.
“Every week, I have to look forward to a good matchup,” Sulzer said. “It keeps me working hard, knowing that I’m going to have to go up against the number one, number two guy in the country. That makes wrestling fun.”
This weekend, Sulzer has to compete against two ranked opponents: No. 13 J Jaggers of Ohio State – last year’s national champion – on Friday. Then, 36 hours later, he takes on Alex Tsirtsis, the No. 2 ranked wrestler from Iowa.
“I’m expected to lose by all the experts out there,” Sulzer said. “So I just go out there and wrestle. I have a chance to knock off the guy who won the nationals in my weight class last year.”
Some of Sulzer’s confidence comes from his qualification for the NCAA tournament last year as a redshirt freshman.
“The whole experience last year was pretty cool,” Sulzer said. “It showed me more than anything that I’m capable of wrestling with the best guys in the country and beating them.”
It showed his coach the same thing.
“He can beat those top-ranked guys,” coach Tim Cysewski said. “No matter what style they wrestle, he’ll be able to force himself on those guys.”
Sulzer comes from a hotbed of wrestling, St. Edward High School, in Cleveland, that also produced teammates Ben Kuhar, Kyle Bertin and Brian Roddy. While Sulzer attended St. Edward, the school won four consecutive state wrestling titles.
“We had some of the best coaches in the country,” Sulzer said. “And the level of skill inside the room was great.”
Although he’s nationally ranked and well over .500 on the year, Sulzer insists that he’s underperforming.
“I just haven’t been wrestling as well as I can recently,” Sulzer said, despite having won his last two matches.
Cysewski sees Sulzer’s self-deprecation as a sign of his motivation to succeed.
“He’s pretty smart, and he realizes he can wrestle better,” Cysewski said. “He sees he’s winning those matches, but he’s not winning them in the way he’s used to, by overpowering people. So he’s been getting the job done, but it isn’t pretty.”
If Sulzer has any potential yet to be unleashed, he might have saved it for a good moment.
“With the Big Tens and NCAAs coming up,” Sulzer said, “now would be a pretty good time for me to start hitting my peak.”
