In the next couple of years, Max Muench will be a wrestler to watch.

The Mehlville Senior High School freshman won the freshman division of the Brute-Adidas National Wrestling Champ-ionships in Lincoln, Neb., in April. He represented the Purler Wrestling Academy.

The first day of competition, Muench de-feated Garret Greenemyre of Nebraska by fall at 1:03 in the championship quarterfinal. He then took a 7-2 decision over Andy Mink of Nebraska in the semifinal.

“I was really shocked because I hadn’t lost in the first day,” Muench told the Call. “I thought that the best I could do was third.”

The championship final featured Muench and undefeated T.J. Hawkins of Kansas. Muench adapted the strategy of “playing it slow” from his club coach Nick Purler. The game plan proved successful as he defeated Hawkins by fall at 1:27.

“I didn’t know what to expect because I had never seen him (Hawkins) before,” Muench said. “I just tried to play it slow because that’s what my coach told me to do. He told me to try to keep the score 0-0 after the first period.”

Besides achieving success on the wrest-ling mat, Muench is an achiever in the classroom with a 3.5 grade-point average. He says math and science are his strongest subjects.

“I’m going to try and get a scholarship in academics or wrestling,” he said.

The youngest son of Katie and Roy Muench got his start in wrestling from watching his older brother Andy, who also wrestles for Mehlville. He is planning on moving into the Mehlville varsity ranks this coming season to take on some of the area’s top talent.

“My brother wrestled and it looked like a lot of fun when I was younger,” Muench said. “The coaches are planning for me to move up to varsity next year and we’ll see what happens.”