It was a rocky journey from youth wrestler who spent his early years getting lessons in humility to reaching his lifelong goal of winning a state championship for Minnetonka senior 189-pounder Marco Christiansen.
Tough, maybe, but a journey Christiansen says he would not change a bit.
Longer and lankier than your traditional wrestler — Christiansen stands 6-4 — he defeated longtime rival Adam Cherne of Wayzata in overtime of the Class 3A 170-pound final last March. It was a victory over a foe who’d had his number going all the way back to sixth grade.
“Growing up, I wasn’t that good. He pinned me in 20 seconds flat then,” Christiansen said. “He beat me my sophomore year, and we wrestled two more times last year. But I won the match that counted.”
The moment he won the match, Christiansen said, was so unexpected that he didn’t know how to react.
“It’s my No. 1 and No. 2 greatest accomplishments,” he said. “It was almost surreal. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even jump up and down. I just ran into the stands.
“It confirmed for me that I’d finally gotten to be a pretty good wrestler.”
It was the first individual state championship in a quarter-century for a Minnetonka wrestler. That made it a significant point of pride for Christiansen.
