Health challenges can't stop Keera Lacock from making DWU women's wrestling history
Mar. 22—MITCHELL — It's not easy to keep Keera Lacock down.
The Rossville, Kansas, native's journey to becoming the first Dakota Wesleyan University women's wrestler to qualify for the NAIA national tournament had no shortage of challenges. Through injuries and illness, Lacock endured, making history first in high school and then at DWU.
When she found out she became the first women's wrestler to qualify, it was an emotional moment for Lacock. She was talking with her mother at the time and was already, 'crying just to cry' over something unrelated when DWU women's wrestling head coach John Lynch left her a voicemail.
"I check my phone and I made the national tournament. So my fake, dramatic tears turned into real tears," Lacock said. "I kind of just shoved my phone in [her mom's] face. She reads it and she's like, 'You need to call him back.' I said, 'I can't call him back, I need to stop crying.'"
The emotional moment was a culmination of the challenges she not only faced during her first collegiate season but everything that she battled since she began wrestling.
But wrestling wasn't Lacock's first sport. Until the eighth grade, she was more focused on gymnastics. Her parents got her involved as a toddler when the family lived in southwest Kansas. Her mother, Teresa, said more than anything it was an outlet to burn some energy.
"She was like a monkey. She was always doing somersaults, flips and hanging on things," Teresa said. "We put her in a kindergarten-level class, then she liked it and stuck with it."
But she always wrestled with her older brother, and she enjoyed challenging him at home. Her love for the sport grew and it was something she wanted to pursue in the future.
"I always wanted to wrestle. I thought it was so fun," Lacock said.
Eventually, the family moved to Rossville and she continued with gymnastics, taking lessons in Topeka. But then in her eighth-grade year, former Rossville wrestling coach Courtney Horgan wanted her to come out shortly after Kansas sanctioned girls wrestling as a sport.
Horgan knew she had a chance to develop into a good wrestler partly because of her gymnastics background. But more importantly, he wanted her to help the girls program in its infancy.
"I knew she'd have really good body control, body awareness and balance," Horgan said. "I think you never know what you're going to get. I was just trying to get numbers out at that point."
With the help of teammates around her who had been wrestling for longer, she was winning matches in no time. She made three-straight trips to the state tournament, placing fourth in her freshman season and second in her junior season. She qualified as a sophomore, but she didn't place partly because of injuries that affected her throughout the season.
"She just got better and better and better as she put more time in," Horgan said. "And you get to a certain point where it's like, 'Man, she's winning some big matches here.'"
Entering her final high school season, hope was high.
Her senior year was to be her magnum opus, with the ultimate goal of a state title as the final act. But, even though she'd overcome injuries and other adversity during her wrestling career, her next challenge would take its toll.
Before the wrestling season started, Lacock ran cross country. However, she fell ill numerous times during the season, usually coming in the form of vomiting and intestinal issues. She wasn't losing weight despite running many miles every day, couldn't eat consistently or ingest liquids to stay hydrated. At one meet, it got bad enough that she became dehydrated after vomiting so much and she passed out.
These problems persisted into the wrestling season. Lacock went to multiple doctors, but answers were elusive. It plagued her all season, causing her to miss practices and fight through sickness during tournaments, becoming a source of constant frustration for the competitive Lacock.
An answer wouldn't come until after her senior wrestling season concluded, but eventually, she learned it was celiac. Celiac is an immune reaction in the intestines when gluten is ingested, causing nausea, abdominal pain and other digestive issues. Lacock said it's difficult to manage because even the slightest amount of gluten can cause an intense reaction, and cross-contamination is difficult to avoid not just in food, but other products such as lip balm.
Unfortunately for Lacock, her competitive spirit and drive sometimes worked against her in this situation. Even when she felt ill, she would try to push through, wanting to compete as hard as she could.
"It just seems like I have a really bad flu every single time, and it's caused a lot of issues where if it continues, you can possibly die from it," Lacock said. "Especially in a sport like wrestling ... you don't want to seem weak, you don't want to seem like you're not working hard and that you're not trying."
Lacock persevered, returning to the state tournament for the fourth-straight year before receiving the diagnosis.
"I was throwing up the entire time," Lacock said. "I couldn't keep any food down because my system had been wrecked by that point. I wasn't eating gluten and I wasn't eating dairy. What I would do is I'd drink a bottle of water and I'd eat like a protein bar, go wrestle and then I'd end up throwing all of it up."
Bryce Gfeller, the current girls wrestling coach at Rossville said the way she handled herself last season was unlike anything he's ever seen, especially out of somebody her age.
"It didn't matter what she was doing in between the matches," Gfeller said. "As soon as she got into wrestling mode, it was put on the back burner. I have not seen, especially a high schooler, with that kind of mentality. She strapped up the work boots and said 'I'm going to work.'"
Her determination to fight through illness at the state tournament made what came next even sweeter. Lacock would finish fourth, her second fourth-place state finish in her career. More importantly, the Rossville girls made history, winning their first team title by only a half point.
Her results on the backside of the bracket aided the Bulldogs to the state title. Even though her ultimate goal was to claim an individual state title, she felt her state performance was meant to be.
"Some things are just meant to happen universally, and I kind of think that God maybe wanted me to go to the backside," Lacock said. "If I would have been on the front side, if I would have been going for finals, we wouldn't have had a state title. ... It always gives me chills when I think about how specific it was because those points wouldn't have added up if anything else would've changed."
As good as she was at wrestling, it wasn't her only possible avenue at the college level.
She had offers for cheerleading and dance, and she also wanted to go somewhere that would allow her to pursue another passion, theater.
Dakota Wesleyan offered her the chance to pursue both wrestling and theater. The Lacocks also already had a connection in Mitchell. Lacock's mother Teresa was one of DWU women's wrestling head coach John Lynch's elementary school teachers back in Kansas.
"We knew him and we knew he was a good guy," Keera's father, Kerry, said. "He was like, 'We have a great theater program. You should come, look at it, come to a practice and come check things out.' So we did and she really liked it."
It was a fit, and expectations were high coming into her freshman season. Lacock was ranked fifth in the 124-pound weight class in the GPAC preseason rankings. But her season got off to a rocky start.
In one of her first matches, she sprained her ankle. Her competitiveness drove her to wrestle through it, but it wasn't healing. Eventually, the decision was made to let it heal and get back to 100% for the stretch run of the season.
"I wanted to wrestle this season. I don't want to have to redshirt my freshman year," Lacock said. "So let's take it slow, let's figure it out and let it heal."
"She hated not being able to work out to as high of a degree as she wanted to," Lynch said. "She hated not being able to wrestle in competitions she missed. But ultimately, I think that between our amazing athletic trainer and having the insight to know where she was, we managed that really well."
Letting the injury heal was the correct choice. She went 14-7 with 11 wins via pinfall. She had multiple top finishes including a first-place finish at the York Open, a third-place finish at the GPAC tournament and another third-place finish at the Spire Classic.
It all culminated in the NAIA national tournament, which didn't go the way she hoped. She was an alternate, so her spot in the bracket came open at the last minute. Unseeded in the field, Lacock tore the lateral collateral ligament in her left knee in her first match, which she lost.
Despite the pain and limited movement in her knee, she was determined to keep going. But wrestling injured limited her in the second match, a loss that ended her tournament.
After getting a taste of nationals though, she's ready to aim higher.
"I don't want to be satisfied with being at the national tournament, I want to be an All-American. No, I want to win the entire nationals," Lacock said. "To know that I have an opportunity to do that, or to even get there, is something that is so just crazy. ... Little freshman me would have never pictured this, never would have pictured it'd come so far. But now that it has, I don't want it to stop."
Regardless of what challenges come her way — on the mat or off it — her coaches, teammates and especially her family are eager to see what history she makes next.
"If she tells us she has a goal or dream, I believe she can do any of it," Teresa said.
"She's going to amaze us. We're just excited to see how," Kerry said.
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