Austin Tracey has excelled in more than one weight class through his wrestling career, but if the Rochelle Township High School senior had his way, he’d choose to grapple with a stronger opponent over someone smaller every match.

Tracey won 15 matches during his junior season, placing first in the Northern Illinois Big 12 Junior Varsity Conference Meet at 170 pounds and earning nearly all of his wins at the varsity level in both the 170-pound and the 182-pound weight classes. He suited up for his first wrestling practice of this season on Thursday, and with Rochelle’s first meet just a few days away, Tracey said he’s anxious to return to the wrestling ring.

“It’s pretty nerve-racking,” Tracey said. “You want to get your skills and everything back so you aren’t rusty on the mat or anything. You’re nervous and it’s the first day so you’re not going to get everything perfect, but you just have to put the work in… We have a strong team bond and we’ve had good seasons over the past two years. Hopefully we can look forward to more success this year.”

A three-sport varsity athlete who plays football in the fall and competes for the Rochelle track and field team during the spring, Tracey said he has greater expectations for himself this winter after he was one match away from earning an automatic bid in the IHSA Class 2A Individual Sectional at Sterling in 2016. He said his plan is to continue shooting well this year while working to improve his technique from the bottom.

“It’s going to take hard work and dedication in the mat room everyday,” Tracey said. “I’m going to start at 182 and I can cut down to 170 if I need to. I like 182 more because there are bigger guys there. I feel comfortable there… It makes things harder wrestling against bigger kids and you really have to want it.”

While some of the Rochelle wrestlers began their careers at a young age, Tracey didn’t pick up the sport until his freshman year. His older brother Tyler Tracey played one year of football and four years of basketball for the Hubs, and Austin said he was thinking of joining the Rochelle basketball program until one of his current wrestling teammates, senior and state qualifier Alex Harvey, convinced him to take up wrestling instead.

“I told myself I’d give it a shot and see how it works out,” Tracey said. “I liked it so I kept on doing it. I like how everything is structured. We practice with a lot of intensity but there’s always good humor in the air. We’ll practice really hard, but during breaks we’ll joke around and we just have a really good atmosphere.”

Rochelle took the Northern Illinois Big 12 Conference Varsity title for the first time in school history during Tracey’s sophomore season, and the Hubs continued to make headlines by picking up their first regional championship in program history at the IHSA Class 2A Individual Regional in Sycamore when Tracey was a junior. Entering his fourth and final high school wrestling season, Tracey said he thinks the team can rack up more accolades this season.

“I feel like I could’ve made sectionals but I made a few mistakes at the regional,” Tracey said. “That’s going to motivate me this year to strive further and make it to state if I can… We have work to put in to help our young guys get better, but we all have pretty high expectations for ourselves. I’d love to see conference, regionals and team sectionals.”

Through the guidance of current and former teammates such as Dustin Kanas, Alex Harvey and his wrestling partner Isaac Contreras, Tracey has molded himself into one of the Hubs varsity wrestling team’s top senior grapplers. Tracey said that wrestling has become his favorite high school sport, and he said he plans to join the U.S. Navy after graduating RTHS, following in the footsteps of two close relatives including his grandfather Dan Tracey.

“It’s an individual and team-oriented sport,” Austin said. “It’s just me out there against somebody else and it’s all the work I put in the mat room against what somebody else has done. It’s me against him and there’s nobody else… I’ve watched a lot of war movies so I always found the Navy interesting, and I’ve had family in it. I like traveling and getting to see the world, and the Navy is a great way to do that.”