There's still more than five months left in this school year, but Cardinal Stritch senior Christian Peters already has the next few years of his life mapped out.

“I'm on the edge of either (playing) football or wrestling in college,” Peters said. “It still depends right now. I plan on going to the University of Houston and majoring in environmental science. I also plan to join the Navy ROTC.”

Peters, however, still has unfinished business. A two-time district wrestling qualifier, he has never competed at the state tournament. He was an alternate last season at 171 pounds.

Cardinal Stritch grappler Christian Peters wins one of his seven matches at Northwood's Derr Invitational. (Press photo by Doug Karns/ Kateriischools.org)

“My goal has always been to make it to the state tournament,” Peters said. “That's the goal every year. Setting the bar high is important. I have lots of goals. Winning a (Ohio Wrestling League) title? Yes. The sky's the limit. It's whatever I put my mind to.”

The 5-foot-10 Peters, a second-team All-Toledo Area Athletic Conference linebacker this season (he weighs 200 pounds in the offseason), was a four-year starter for the Cardinals' football team and will earn his fourth varsity letter in wrestling this season.

Through Dec. 16, Peters had a 15-0 record with six pins, and he took the 182-pound title at the Northwood Derr Invitational. Peters won the championship match, 5-3, in overtime and finished 7-0 at the prestigious event.

“He looked good,” said coach David Wlodarz, in his 10th season at Stritch. “He's looking good this year. He's starting to open up his offense a little bit more. He's a pretty strong kid. As we get him to open it up a little bit more, he's finding out he has the talent to do it. He's believing in himself a little bit more and it's starting to make a difference and he's coming along. He may end up going down to 170 before the season ends.”

Peters, who has 79 career wins, took second in the OWL as a freshman at 145 pounds. He took second at 152 as a sophomore and qualified to districts, and last season he was again a league runner-up and advanced to the district tournament.

Win or lose, Peters, who lives in Genoa, has lots of family support. His mother, Maria, is a huge wrestling fan, and Peters' grandfather, William Peters, comes to almost all of his matches.

Peters' wrestling bloodline, in fact, goes way back.

His father, Bill, who graduated from Clay in 1980, was a standout wrestler for the Eagles. Bill qualified to the state tournament at 138 pounds as a senior and later wrestled at Navy.

Peters' maternal uncles, Aaron and Jim, were also top-notch wrestlers. Jim, who now lives in Texas, wrestled for Clay and then for the United States Naval Academy, where he was an NCAA tournament placer and All-American. Aaron, who lives in Virginia, placed third at the state tournament for Stritch and also wrestled for the U.S. Naval Academy, where he was a two-time NCAA tournament qualifier.

“Christian is a great kid,” Wlodarz said. “He's a model kid, a kid any coach would want in his program. He listens all the time and is very respectful, and he comes from a great family. His dad and his uncles were all phenomenal wrestlers. I couldn't be more proud of anyone.”

Not only is Peters, who won a title at last Saturday's 10-team Hopewell-Loudon tournament, trying to make his own mark in his family, he's trying to help bring prestige back to Stritch's wrestling program.

“We're rebuilding, so it's important for me to show that Stritch still has a wrestling team, that we're not just some hand-me-down team,” Peters said. “We go in and we work hard. I don't feel as much pressure as I do pride. I've had family members go to Stitch. My uncle wrestled there and that's just another person I can look up to and I can try to fill his shoes, because he was really good.”

Wlodarz said the Cardinals' program is, indeed, on the rise.

“We're looking forward to the next three or four years,” he said. “We finally have a junior high program - we call them the Junior Cardinals Wrestling Club - for grades 6-8. Once those boys start to get old enough and come to the high school level and stay committed to what we want to accomplish, we should be back in the picture more. This is our first year putting a junior high team together and it's coming along nicely.”

Peters, who has a 3.5 GPA, even has a wrestling mat in his basement so he can spar with former Northwestern wrestler Brandon Lozdoski.

“He's a family friend who comes over and works out with me,” said Peters, who runs on a treadmill at home every day before school. “My older brother (Alex) went to school with his fiance. We wrestle every other week. We go over tapes of my matches and work on single-legs and all that. We work on everything that we can critique from the tapes. There's always room for improvement in wrestling. There is no bar.”

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