BRANDON — Brandon Valley’s Elijah Schunke is continuing the family wrestling tradition.

Behind brothers Damion and Navarro, Elijah is building a resume of his own as he closes out his high school wrestling career.

The 285-pound senior won his first state title last season in the 215-pound weight class with a 14-3 decision over Rapid City Central’s Ayden Kellogg.

“That match was pretty scary in the first 10 seconds,” Elijah said of last season’s state title match. “Aside from that, I knew I was going to be in control the rest of the match because I wasn’t going to get put in that position again. I knew all the pressure that was coming on to me because I’d felt it before but just tried to use that pressure against my opponent was probably the biggest part.”

The state title marked the first for Elijah but the ninth in the Schunke family, with Damion winning three titles in his career and Navarro a five-time state champ. Elijah said to win one of his own was a major accomplishment for both him and the family.

“It was huge for me just winning it because joining my brothers as a state champ and also to pursue that goal that I had since my sophomore season when I really felt it was possible right away,” Elijah said.

Now in his senior year, Schunke has been on a tear with a 37-1 record despite the transition up to the heavyweight class. While it’s been a relatively smooth transition, Schunke says there’s been plenty of new challenges.

“Bigger guys are a lot harder to move, I found that out over the summer,” Schunke said. “I just have to keep going and pushing pace on them and keep moving the whole time. Trying to get angles instead of getting caught underneath these guys has probably been my biggest thing to fix.”

But his mentality has remained the same as returning state champ facing new competition, “just go out and put on a show.”

“Even if I lose, as long as I go out and do everything I know I can do to try to win that match, then I’ll be happy,” Schunke said. “But if I know there’s doubt and there’s still stuff on the mat that I need to do, then it just sucks. But just having confidence in myself to just keep going forward because anyone can be beaten.”

But as the younger brother of two multi-time state champions, the expectations were high but the results didn’t follow right away. Schunke said it took a while before he understood what it took to find the kind of success his older brothers had.

“I kind of expected it just because they had it and I thought I would get it too, but I slowly realized that they worked for it and seeing the state titles that they had combined and the fact that I didn’t do anything crazy, I felt like I needed to prove myself a little more and just improve all around in my life,” Elijah said.

And it didn’t take long for Elijah to end up in a similar spot, making it all the way to the state title match in his sophomore year. Despite the loss, he credits his brothers for helping shape him into the wrestler he is today.

“Anytime I can talk to Damion throughout my high school career, I would, and he will always text me before matches just letting me know stuff is going to be alright. Just go out and go have fun, you only get to live these moments once. Navarro being my teammate, it was a whole different story. That was when we got close, and was on the mat doing better together. He helped push me in the room along with coaches and he just made sure I wasn’t going to mess up my future.”

BV head coach Tom Meester has seen the growth firsthand over the past several years, and while it’s tough to compare his success to his older brothers, Elijah has become a role model for Lynx wrestling.

“When he was a freshman you just assume he’s going to be something, but you don’t know,” Meester said. “When Damion was an eighth grader, he took third and probably should’ve won a state title. When Navarro was an eighth grader, he had won a state title. Elijah wasn’t quite there as a freshman yet, but all of a sudden he finds himself in the state finals and he had lost to a kid he had beaten during the year. I don't know if it was just simply getting older, but he has matured and he’s a role model for our program”

And as Elijah prepares for one more run at a state title, and a potential 10th championship for the Schunke trio, he’ll be taking it one match at a time.

“It’ll be sweet, but just another match still, just another tournament,” Elijah said. “It’ll just be another accolade to our last name so it’ll solidify our legacy that we have going.”

Elijah will follow in his brother's footsteps of pursuing college athletics, committing to Utah Valley University for wrestling back last May. Damion is in his senior year on the Arizona State wrestling team while Navarro is in his sophomore year as a member of the Kansas State football team.

Elijah leaned on his parents, Tony and Jennifer, and his two brothers to help make his college decision.

“At some point they both felt like they had too many options as well,” Elijah said. “I just felt lost because I didn’t really know what was going on so they and my mom helped me a lot. They helped me pray about it to find the correct place for me and I believe it was.”

“Their coaches are amazing. Coach Adam Hall, Tim McCall, Andrew Hochstrasser, they’re insanely good guys. The way they’re turning their program around and moving it forward is insane, it’s just really fun to be around, especially with a growing program like that.”