Rayden Zens will savor his senior season when it’s over. Until then, the Aberdeen Central standout has work to do.

Zens, owner of three top-six podium finishes at the state wrestling tournament in his career, is staring down one final Class A state tournament, and his entire focus is on one thing – winning.

“I’m not holding back this tournament,” Zens said. “I just look at it as I have nothing to lose.”

The weekend will be a culmination of a career that started when Zens was in kindergarten. Zens said he recalls his father coming home one day and asking if he wanted to try wrestling.

“I was like, sure, I’ll try it,” Zens recounted. “I went to the first practice and ever since, I haven’t stopped.”

He tried his hand at other sports along the way, including football and baseball. But wrestling was his first love, the one that always stuck.

“I was always a lot better at that than the other ones,” he said. “I love the sport, and I like that I’m talented at that.”

Success has generally followed that talent, save for one stretch early on in his career.

“I think I was in third or fourth grade,” Zens said. “I wanted to quit because I kept losing. I would get so mad.”

Finally, his dad came up with a singular piece of advice that transformed his entire career. Just have fun with it, he told his son.

So he did. And when wrestling is fun, Zens is hard to beat. As a freshman, he finished third at the state tournament at 106 pounds and followed with a fifth place finish at 120 his sophomore year and a sixth place showing at 126 last season.

Zens is back at 126 pounds this season and ready to take on one last state tournament.

Standing in his way, however, is another state standout – Watertown’s Sloan Johanssen. Zens and Johanssen have had many a tussle throughout their careers and while the Watertown grappler has had the upper hand in most of them, Zens has something to boast, too.

He’s been the only wrestler to have ever beaten Johanssen, once as a freshman and once this season at the Bismarck Rotary Tournament.

While the two have mutual respect for each other – they will, after all, be teammates at Northern State next season – Johanssen is one reason Zens is taking nothing for granted at this year’s state tournament.

“My freshman year I did that, and I lost to Sloan,” Zens said. “I was wrestling safe.”

Zens’ place in this year’s tournament is due in part to his Region 3A title, a win that helped the Golden Eagles to their first region title in almost a decade.

“That was really fun,” he said. “I lost my voice that day. … That was awesome to have happen.”

Of course, the key to that victory was knocking off perennial powerhouse Pierre, who has had a stranglehold on the region title since Central’s last win in 2015.

“I don’t have a lot of beef with Pierre,” Zens said, “it’s just fun to beat them.”

Zens said he grew up watching former Golden Eagles and former state champs Brendan Salfrank and Collin Haar, both of whom went on to have wrestling careers at the collegiate level. Watching them have success helped Zens want the same thing, not only for himself, but for his team.

“My eighth grade year … that was a bad year for Aberdeen,” Zens said. “I remember saying to myself, I want my team to be better. Pierre was always in the way. But as the years went on, next year and the year after that, we kept getting better.”

The key to that success, however, never changed. Wrestling should be fun.

“Not even just wrestling,” Zens said. “Any great athlete, if you ask them, their number one thing is just to have fun.”

There’s a good chance that Zens and Johanssen will meet one last time on the mat as rivals and Zens knows he will need to stay focused.

“It goes back to having fun when you’re wrestling,” he said. “When I do lose to him, man it sucks, but I’ve grown wrestling him. … But when you win, it’s the best feeling ever.”