As the winter season reaches its end, there is always one final challenge. Sections.

Sections are usually what most athletes spend their entire season preparing for, working hard and improving to hopefully punch their ticket to the state tournament.

For Jamisen Fredrickson, this has been his goal for his whole life. Fredrickson has been wrestling for 14 years, starting in Rolling Thunder and making his varsity debut in his Junior year.

His long career as a wrestler has given him a lot of insight into his strategy for the biggest matches of his life. Fredrickson believes in a straightforward philosophy going into the big day. “My biggest motivation is to just keep moving, the only way to progress is to keep moving. I just need to wrestle my best,” Fredrickson said.

A few days after I asked Jamisen those questions, the day had arrived. Fredrickson won his first match swiftly, with a pin in 31 seconds. He then had a thrilling semi-final match against Javon Johnson of MAHACA. After 3 minutes of hard wrestling, Jamisen came away with the win with a big pin.

In the finals, he faced one seed Gavin Schaefer of Marshall, who had pinned Fredrickson before. Jamisen came up short in this match, but if you are in second place, you still advance to state, but Fredrickson’s day wasn’t done yet. He had one more match for the “true-second” spot. The third-place wrestler gets to face the second-place wrestler for his spot. The match was a dogfight, with both wrestlers hitting big moves on each other. With Jamisen’s lifelong teammates surrounding the mat, Jamisen got a big takedown and got his opponent onto his back, and after a while, he got the pinfall victory, punching his ticket to the tournament he has always dreamed about making it to.

“I feel pretty amazing after qualifying, and to me, it means I’ve finally achieved a goal I’ve had since day one,” Fredrickson said.  Jamisen will compete at the state tournament the weekend of February 28 at the Xcel Energy Center, hoping to place or win the whole thing.