photo by: David Rodish/Journal-World

Free State's Jessica Berg gets a pin in the 5th Annual Leavenworth Challenger on Saturday, Dec. 6, 2025, in Leavenworth.

Jessica Berg paces the length of the wrestling mat as she prepares for her next bout. The key to her game is aggression: As a freshman, she has to beat older wrestlers by controlling the match.

To get into that mind frame, Berg cues up music while she stares down her opponent. First up on her playlist: “Let It Go” from Disney’s “Frozen.”

“I listen to it every tournament,” Berg said. “It helps clear my brain so I can then go to work.”

It might go against expectations, but Berg knows what works for her. Similarly, on the wrestling mat, Berg’s experience allows her to succeed early into her high school career at Free State — heading into regional weekend, Berg is 24-4. Of those four losses, only one has come from a Kansas wrestler in 6A.

Berg is in her freshman year wrestling at Free State, but this is far from her first year on the mat. She has been wrestling since she was around six years old and comes from a family of wrestlers. Soon, the Berg house is going to have a new shed in which there will be a mat to practice on during the offseason.

“We’ve seen her wrestle through club and middle school,” Free State coach Melle Dye said. “We always knew she was going to come in and make the lineup. She’s experienced, and she’s been wrestling well. You can tell her style of wrestling, she’s just used to it.”

There’s a reason why Berg has wrestled for so long and found so much success as a freshman: she loves it. There’s never a down moment when Berg gets to wrestle. Even during winter break when the Free State wrestling team had practice at 7 a.m., Berg was always ready to go, even on some days when Dye was tired.

“I send good morning texts before we practice,” Berg said. “I wake up at 6 a.m. every morning… I just wake up and I have the adrenaline every morning to get ready for the day.

“It helps a lot, having that excitement, that love for the sport. My old kids club coach would say, ‘You can go all three periods plus overtime if you work hard and have a love for the sport.’ So I leave it all on the mat.”

Berg always brings energy and excitement, but when she’s on the mat, her demeanor is calm and collected. Dye said her mindset is apparent when she’s down in a match early on, and Berg is capable of staying level and proceeding to her next move to eventually get the win. She knows to take a deep breath, settle in and go to the next move.

“With a lot of new girls, they know one move, and they stick to this one move,” Dye said. “(Berg) can chain wrestle pretty well. She’s got like three moves in her bag that she can go and get. She’s rare, especially for this day and age, for freshman wrestlers.”

And on the rare occasion that Berg doesn’t win, she has enough self-awareness to immediately assess where she went wrong before she debriefs with her coaches. Dye said it’s impressive to see her level of understanding at her age.

A lot of that comes from her wrestling upbringing and how much her family has been involved in the sport throughout her life. On top of having the knowledge of her coaches at Free State to debrief with, Berg will debrief with her parents, John and Lauren Berg.

“A lot of it is the same — don’t crush your feet, don’t get too high, all simple things that I can tweak and work on in the next tournament or the next dual,” Berg said. “My dad wrestled, and my mom is in my corner all the time.”

This weekend, Berg and the Firebirds will have a tough challenge ahead of them. Free State competes in the West regional tournament, which consists of most of the top wrestling teams in the state.

For Berg, that means battling the top wrestlers in the 120-pound weight class in the state. In the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association’s latest 6A rankings, five of the top six wrestlers in the weight class compete in the West. The exception is Gardner Edgerton’s Asper Walker, who pinned Berg in the league tournament.

It’s going to be a challenge, but it’s one that Berg is excited for. Having battled through some injuries earlier in the year, Berg is ready for the match, and her coach has the confidence in her.

“I know there are some really tough girls, but I know she can handle it,” Dye said. “I think she’ll have a great weekend. I’m anxious to see how she’ll wrestle.”

photo by: David Rodish/Journal-World

Free State’s Jessica Berg moves around in a match during the RavenMania girls wrestling tournament on Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025, in Olathe.