Sometimes it takes a while for comprehension to happen after a major accomplishment.
Ryan Herman had one of those moments in a hotel room in Indianapolis.
The Maryville University senior had won the 285-pound Division II championship earlier this month.
“It really didn’t sink in until I was showering afterward,” he said. “I definitely got a noise complaint. You know, I just screamed in the shower and just let it out. Dude, I was pumped. I still kind of got that pumped-up attitude. It is slowly seeping in.”
The native of St. Clair went 28-2 this season and capped the year winning his last 14 matches.
At the NCAA Division II finals, held March 13-14, he opened with an 8-2 win over Kale Schrader from Newberry College. If that name sounds familiar, it should. Schrader was a Class 4 champion at Carthage in 2019.
In the quarterfinals, Herman avenged one of his two losses of the season with a 4-0 win versus Lloyd Reynolds from Wisconsin-Parkside. Earlier this season, Reynolds won 10-3.
Herman blanked Jake Swirple from Minot State, 6-0, in the semifinals.
A tiebreaker decided the national championship. Herman secured a 3-2 win over Isaiah Vance from Pitt-Johnstown to claim the Saints’ second-ever national championship.
Earlier that day, Cole Ritter won a national title located in the St. Louis suburb of Town and Country.
The two finalists met back on Dec. 14 and Herman won by a pin at the 4:24 mark at the 45th Annual Midwest Classic.
Tied after regulation and then no one scored in the two-minute sudden death. Herman rode out Vance and held on for the win.
This marked the second All-American finish for Herman, who was seventh last year for the Saints. He went 3-2 at that national meet and lost in the quarterfinals. In a unique twist, his first match at the D-II championship was also against Reynolds.
Saints coach Charlie Sherertz said the work that Herman put in the past two summers played a part in the postseason success.
“Herman was on board with me from the day I was hired,” said Sherertz, a former head coach at Whitfield High School. “Herman and a few others had a little bit of a head start when I got hired in July (2023) and we started training right away. I started putting them in front of good instructors from Division I schools and using my resources with friends at Mizzou and Southern Illinois. We started traveling and training and it paid off. Herman’s probably been my most consistent, steady kid since I’ve had the job. He’s really, really upbeat.”
Going into the finals against Vance, Herman said he wasn’t nervous after envisioning a win hundreds of times in his head.
He said his biggest issue before a match is overthinking.
Herman had two things working in his favor before the finals. For one, Ritter was in the finals.
“I should’ve been locked in and thinking about my match but I was pumped watching Cole,” Herman said. “The guy I was wrestling was locked in and getting ready behind me and I’m just sitting there going crazy watching Cole.”
Then, there was his playlist. To stay loose for a big match there isn’t some rock ballad to get him pumped.
“I just throw the headphones on with some Katy Perry or Megan Trainor or just some girly pop song and just dance,” he said. “You know, it gets your mind off of it so that is what I do.”
The end of his career at Maryville was better than the start when he redshirted and then got hurt the next year and also hurt the following year.
Mixed in the 2020-21 COVID-shorten season, Herman had an interesting collegiate career.
“My earlier years were underwhelming for me but this is where I what I wanted; this was the end goal,” Herman said.
Herman even mentioned the start of his final season was a rocky one — the loss to Reynolds.
He gave up only four takedowns all year — three of them came in that loss.
“I’m like sh*t, what can I do here?” he said. “I can’t be 0-1 the first weekend and expect to be a national champion, you know? I wrestled the next day banged up and icing my back during warm-ups. It was a challenging weekend but I fought through.”
He wrestled through pain and got help from guys like John Gholson, a Nixa wrestler who transferred in from Drury University, who was his training partner.
“I got to the last three months of the season and I was getting like an hour or two of athletic training, getting ice baths and rehab on every part of my body,” he said. “I mean, my body’s falling apart so I feel it’s a good time to call it for now and recover.”
Herman built a relationship with new teammates and old ones — but almost all of them razed the 24-year-old.
“All these young guys give me crap about being old; they’ve got three jokes that they make at me; I’m old, my hairline and I’m fat,” Herman said. “But that’s the only thing they’ve got on me so I let it slide at times. They poke fun at me and I make fun of them.”
Luckily for the Saints’ returning wrestlers, they will get a little bit more of Herman.
He said he will be on the coaching staff next year in some capacity but that will be determined later.
Herman has a degree in business administration and is working on his MBA with a specialization in management.
Sherertz said he is looking forward to watching Herman work with redshirt freshman Orest Nazarchuk, who prepped at national powerhouse Wyoming Seminary.
“It will be great to have him in the room,” Sherertz said.
