Aggressive Style Is Shawn Streck Trademark

Watch pretty much any heavyweight wrestling match on the collegiate level and you get the same thing. A bunch of shoving and pushing, with very few – if any -- takedowns and not much scoring.

And then there's a Shawn Streck heavyweight bout.

Constant motion and movement. A single leg shot here. A snap-down, run-around there. Points are scored, usually in a frenzied flurry of take 'em down and let 'em up just so it can happen again.

That's the Streck style and it works.

The Central Oklahoma senior is a two-time All-American and the defending national champion. He enters this week's NCAA Division II Wrestling Championships in Wichita, Kan. with a 15-1 record and has averaged 17.3 points – 17.3 points! – in the 15 matches that have gone the distance.

That's a bunch of takedowns, 75 to be exact. The agile, quick-moving 260-pounder has tallied at least five takedowns in 14 of his 16 matches this season.

Streck has 14 bonus-point wins, including a school-record-tying 11 technical falls. Amazingly, seven of those tech falls have been by the same score – 19-4, each of them having ended in the second period.

"I think I've led the team in takedowns on every team I've been on," said Streck, who has competed at heavyweight since the sixth grade. "It was really instilled by my first club coach, so that's the style I was brought up on. That's just the way I wrestle. I'm aggressive and like to score points."

It's been successful strategy throughout his career.

A highly-decorated prep standout at Merrillville (Ind.) High School, Streck started his college career at Purdue. He redshirted his first year in 2016-17, then won 30 matches and was a Division I national qualifier the following season while leading the Boilermakers in takedowns.

Streck left Purdue and was out of wrestling for a couple of years before moving to Stillwater in 2019 to train in the Cowboy Wrestling Club Regional Training Center. And then, in the winter of 2021, he opted to return to college at UCO.

"One of my coaches in Stillwater is a good friend of Coach (Todd) Steidley's and he kept telling me that I needed to go to UCO," Streck said. "He said 'They're good people, it's a great program. You should go back to school.'

"I went home for Christmas and was telling my family about it and they said I should do it. They told me it would be a good idea to finish school and wrestle on a team."

It's been a perfect match for both parties.

Shawn enrolled for the spring semester in 2022, began working out with the team after the Christmas break and made his debut in late January. There was an early adjustment period, but Streck made an immediate impact.

"I hadn't wrestled folkstyle in a while, so I had to work on that," said Streck, who had trained in freestyle while with the Cowboy Wrestling Club. "It was a new city, a different environment, but I enjoyed it once I got here. Everybody was really cool and treated me great, which really helped."

He started with a bang, scoring falls in his first three matches. Streck outscored three opponents a combined 49-11 in capturing the Regional IV title, then opened the national tournament with three straight wins despite hurting his shoulder in the first match.

Streck dropped a tough 3-2 decision to the eventual champion in the semifinals before defaulting with the shoulder injury in his final two matches to finish sixth and earn All-America status.

Shawn had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder in May and wasn't fully released until October. He missed the first month of the 2022-23 season recovering, then dominated upon his return.

Streck went a perfect 26-0 with 16 bonus wins and held a stagging 103-1 advantage in takedowns. He claimed a second straight regional crown, went 4-0 against a loaded field to become UCO's first-ever heavyweight national champion and was named Division II Wrestler of the Year.

"When I first got here I was real quiet," Shawn said. "It took me a little bit to open up and all that. I was a lot more comfortable last year after getting adjusted to being back in school, being with new team and a new area."

The individual national title also helped the Bronchos capture their 16th team championship and the first since 2007.

"That was probably the best moment of my career," Streck said of the team title. "I had never been on a really good team and that was something I'll never forget, how good our team was.

"The energy in the air, you could just feel it. Going through the year you could just see we were all dialed in. We didn't talk about it much, but everybody had a common goal and that was something I had never been a part of."

Streck capped the national tournament by proposing to his girlfriend (Racheal) on the mat after UCO accepted the team trophy while surrounded by his teammates. The two were married in the spring and then he set his sights on ending his career with another trip to the top of the podium in 2024.

Division II semester limitations prevented Shawn from competing until early January in the NWCA Division II National Duals. Streck racked up routs of 21-4, 20-3, 12-2 and 19-4 in helping UCO capture the title and his only non-bonus win in the regular season was a 4-2 victory over Nebraska-Kearney's fifth-ranked Crew Howard.

That domination continued in the first two matches at the regional tournament with a 19-4 technical fall and first-period pin. And then, in the finals, a late mental lapse turned a 10-4 lead into a stunning 11-10 loss to Maryville's Ryan Herman.

It ended a 41-match winning streak and dropped Streck from first to third in the national tournament seedings, but there could be benefits to the setback.

"It (the loss) got me going and got me dialed in a little more," said Streck, who has a 53-3 career record with the Bronchos. "I heard it everywhere 'oh, man, you're killing it, we want you to dominate.' It put things in perspective. This guy's wrestling too and anything can happen.

"It gave me a new sense of motivation. It definitely gave me something to work toward because you can sort of get complacent. I do my best wrestling after I take losses so I'm looking forward to getting back out there."

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Players Mentioned

Shawn Streck: 6' 1"; Senior

Players Mentioned

Shawn Streck
: 6' 1"; Senior