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“(At the) Division I level it’s more of a job,” Spence said of wrestling.

Spence came home to Cincinnati for his freshman year winter break, planning to keep attending Ohio University, just not as a student-athlete. His course would change. Spence went over to a friend's house during the break. It was there that he ran into an old friend, Julian Hall, who was wrestling for the College of Mount St. Joseph at the time. Hall suggested Spence go to the Lions' next home meet. Spence went and decided he didn’t want his wrestling career to be over and transferred to the College of Mount St. Joseph, where he just finished his junior season.

“Ever since I’ve transferred to the Mount I’ve been the happiest guy,” Spence said. “I think it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

Spence said there is still a lot of hard work involved in wrestling at the Division III level, but the atmosphere isn’t as much like a job.

“The coaches and wrestlers here, they keep it fun,” Spence said.

During his first two seasons back in Cincinnati, Spence was wrestling in the 157 pound weight class. He qualified for the NCAA Division III National Championship both seasons, but wasn’t a serious contender to win the whole thing.

“When I went out to nationals wrestling in the 157 weight class, I was just happy to be there,” Spence said.

So before his junior season he decided to drop down to the 149 pound weight class, so he could one of the strongest wrestlers in his class. Lions coach Casey Stouffer explained the benefits of dropping a weight class.

“If you can do it in a healthy way, you can be a lot stronger than your opponent if you’re not cutting down muscle and stuff,” Stouffer said. “Most people, if they’re cutting too hard, they’ll lose a lot of muscle. He’s right at the right point where he’s not losing any muscle.”

Spence was not content to simply drop a weight class. There were other improvements he felt were necessary. In wrestling, two points is awarded for a takedown. But a wrestler is awarded a riding point if he has been in control for a minute longer than his opponent during the course of a match. Spence decided to work on gaining the riding point more and not going for as many takedowns because takedowns are hard to come by at the national level and the riding time becomes more critical.

“At the national level, you’re not going to be able to take a guy down five, six times a match,” Spence said. “Once you get to the higher level of competition, the guys are going to be harder to take down. In the match, there’s only going to be like one or two takedowns.”

Given those improvements, Spence and Stouffer went into his third national competition feeling optimistic.

“He has a great shot this year of winning the whole thing,” Stouffer said before the competition the weekend of March 8.

Spence came through in his first three matches, scoring wins and advancing to the finals. But he fell short in his championship match against Wartburg College’s Jacob Naig, making Spence the national runner-up.

In Naig, Spence ran into an opponent that had an advantage before even stepping on the mat. Spence said he talked to some coaches and wrestlers from other schools and heard that Wartburg is one of two schools that rent an extra hotel room when it goes to nationals. The room is only used to watch film on opponents.

"He knew every move that I would try to do," Spence said. "He had me scouted perfectly."

Stouffer said he wants to see Spence use a greater variety of moves during his senior year to thwart opponents with a lot of scouting resources.

"He gets kind of one-dimensional in his wrestling in a match," Stouffer said. "He usually only relies on his top two or three moves. He needs to be a little bit better-rounded."

Spence said he is also concentrating on getting faster.

"You can never be in good enough shape for wrestling," Spence said.

With all the hard work Spence is putting in, he still finds time for some fun moments. Sophomore 133 pounder Eric Meyer said one such moment came on a team bus trip returning from Terre Haute, Ind when a shirtless Spence had an announcement.

"We had won the HCAC duels, so we were all pretty stoked," Meyer said. "The bus was all dark and everything. (Spence) writes down a list of our whole schedule and everything. And he turns on the van light and he steps up on the back seat and he starts reading them off. He's like, 'we went to Midstates and we placed top ten,' or whatever it was. We went to Purdue and we held our own and everything. And after each, he'd yell, 'bia,' off the Dave Chappelle skit."

But Meyer said he doesn't question Spence's ability to get serious at match time.

"He always knows when the time comes to get down to business," Meyer said. "There's a time to have fun and there's a time to get stuff done. And he's definitely a person that knows the difference."

Spence said he plans to wrestle in the 149 pound weight class again in his senior season.

"I'd love to go back and have another crack at Naig," he said.