Staff photo / Preston Byers Canfield’s Tyler Scharrer sizes up Poland’s Jakob DeLuca in the 138-pound third-place match of the Eastern Ohio Wrestling League (EOWL) tournament Jan. 11 at Austintown Fitch.

Tyler Scharrer has lost count of the times he has injured his right knee.

He estimates there have been four or five different instances in which he has re-tore or otherwise aggravated his MCL, an injury he first sustained playing football as a sophomore.

“Most of the time, it’s just a partial tear, so [I] just keep struggling through that,” Scharrer said Jan. 11 at the Eastern Ohio Wrestling League (EOWL) tournament, during which he “tweaked” his knee in a match.

Possibly because of the frequency of reinjury – Scharrer partially tore his MCL again in August during a football scrimmage – the Canfield senior does not linger on whatever pain he may feel or how it affects him mentally.

“It’s a little setback, for sure,” Scharrer said. “I wouldn’t say it gets worse every time. Sometimes it’s worse, sometimes it’s not. Just kind of depends.”

Fortunately, Scharrer has escaped surgery to this point, although he did say there is a possibility for an arthroscopy after wrestling season.

During his 138-pound matches, Scharrer wears a large, black brace that starts several inches above his knee and extends down near the bottom of his calf. Despite how it looks, though, neither the brace nor the injury it shields seem to hinder Scharrer.

Now a senior leader for the Cardinals, Scharrer is a three-time state qualifier – twice since the injury – and a state placer in March 2022, months after initially tearing his MCL.

This season has been tougher than the last, however.

As a junior, Scharrer entered the state tournament with a 33-0 record. This year, after a fifth-place finish at Top Gun in Alliance this past weekend, Scharrer is 25-5.

Maybe that’s for the best, though.

“I’m actually happy this year that he’s lost a couple of times. I think he has three or four losses on the year, which is good for him,” Canfield coach Craig Shaw said after Scharrer’s third-place finish at the EOWL Championship. “That way he can just relax, it’s not a burden and he can just flow freely. And he doesn’t have that big target on his back all the time.”

Still, Shaw said he sees Scharrer “pushing the envelope a little too much.”

“He expects so much of himself and he knows what level he is on, so he’s just trying to be perfect in every aspect,” Shaw said. “He’s hard on himself. He just keeps trying to get better. So he’s a little too hard on himself right now.”

The coach said he wants to see Scharrer go “back to the basics” and slow down because if he can do that, Scharrer, Shaw said, is “almost unstoppable.”

Scharrer admitted being undefeated was on his mind last season, he indicated his mindset about the state tournament has improved from years past. In particular, as a freshman and sophomore, his performance in Columbus would dictate how he viewed his entire season.

“Freshman year, 100% I was like, ‘Wow.’ You look up and it’s just stands and stands full of people. But now, it’s just kind of another one of those tournaments that you go to. It’s got good competition, and you battle it.”

Whether his knee will play a factor or not, Scharrer is determined to avenge a disappointing finish last March.

After winning his 34th match of the season, Scharrer faced Graham Local’s Hayden Hughes, the eventual 138-pound Division II state champion who proceeded to hand Scharrer his first loss of the season in the quarterfinals. In his next match in the consolation bracket, Scharrer fell to Wauseon’s Jordan Cook, missing out on the podium in the process.

“I definitely used it as motivation, not placing in state last year, bumping my knee all the way,” Scharrer said. “But I’ve definitely used it as motivation, trying to work every day in the room, to not have that feeling after state again.”