Reece Conklin stepped onto the wrestling mat and sized up his opponent in the championship match of the Kansas State Wrestling Folkstyle Championships Sunday afternoon.

All around him at the Kansas Expocentre in Topeka, fans, friends, family members and coaches yelled out words of encouragement.

Not that Conklin could hear them.

He was too focused on winning his third straight state championship – not to mention his wrestling headgear somewhat muffled the cries from the crowd.

The 12-year-old Southwest Junior High student, wrestling in the 120-pound weight class, has been grappling since he was five and at some point in the last year or so he realized that his real opponent was not the boy standing across from him, but any notion of fear within him.

Once he realized that, Conklin became a better, more confident wrestler.

“When you’re going up against a hard kid, who you know is good, you have to get past the fear of wrestling him,” he explained.

Now he is not afraid of anyone when he wrestles.

“I’ve gotten past that fear. Now I don’t think much about (opponents), I just go out and wrestle, no matter who it is,” he said. “I learned that I didn’t need to be afraid.”

Without an ounce of fear in his body, Conklin was confident heading into his championship match, just as he was Saturday when he pinned all three of his opponents, shutting out each one of them en route to a championship berth.

This opponent proved tougher, though. This guy refused to be pinned.

Conklin had to battle through three minute-and-a-half periods and win the championship with points.

“Just hold him down and don’t let him score any points,” he told himself.

Conklin did just that.

He shut out his fourth opponent of the weekend and captured the state title for his age and weight class for the third consecutive year.

Getting here was not easy for Conklin. He earned it with practice and preparation.

He practiced with the Southwest Junior High wrestling team. He practiced with his Paola wrestling team, with which he won Sunday.

He ran track and played football and baseball. He maintained a healthy diet – eating rice, grilled chicken, fruits and vegetables.

“You have to be in shape,” Conklin said. “If you go all three periods it’s really exhausting, especially if it’s a hard, moving-quick-as-you-can match.”

He also prepared by sizing up his opponents at the event.

Conklin scouted his opponents before he wrestled this weekend. He made mental notes on the opposition’s strengths and weaknesses as he watched them wrestle other kids.

“I’m thinking about what I’m going to do in the match,” he said of his thought process while scouting. “I usually watch how he wrestles and what he does and how I’m going to defend it.”

By committing to this process, Conklin has transformed himself into a dominant wrestler. Other than being confident, he said there is not much to controlling a match.

“Just being smart and knowing how to wrestle” are the keys, along with “knowing what you’re going to do and not being scared.”

When he wrestles, Conklin prefers for things to come naturally. He tries not to think too much in the heat of battle.

“I just let my instincts take over,” he said. “I just trust myself.”

When the dust settled Sunday at the Expocentre, Conklin had his arm raised in victory. He won the state title for the third year in a row.

“That’s the thing I’ll remember,” he said.

As his championship run came to the end he had worked for, Conklin looked around and said to himself, “I finally did it.”