NEWARK — Their high school careers are officially over, but Kelseyville High School heavyweight Morgan Nelson and Upper Lake High School lightweight Fwee Chao took the exit door, stage right, wearing the medals they won on Saturday during the final rounds of the North Coast Section Wrestling Championships in Newark.
Medals are awarded to the top eight in each of the 14 weight classes and are highly coveted.
“It”s a 40-man bracket, so it”s hard to win one,” Kelseyville coach Rob Brown said.
Nelson finished sixth in the 287-pound division, having wrestled nine matches in two days, or about one-quarter his season total entering the tournament.
“That was a surprise,” Brown said of Nelson medaling. “For a kid to place third in his league and to come back and place in the section tournament is unheard of. They couldn”t stop him.”
Nelson lost his first match on Friday before reeling off four straight pins in the consolation bracket to reach day two.
In his first match Saturday, Nelson pinned Spencer Smith of Amador in 45 seconds, his fifth straight first-round pin in the tournament. He came back to beat Matt Buckman of Eureka 12-10, a victory that put him into the consolation semifinals against Dylan Wynn of DeLaSalle. Just one win away from a state berth, Nelson lost to Wynn on a first-round pin.
The loss dropped Nelson into the fifth-place match, which he dropped to Joe Dail of Windsor by first-round pin.
“He went 6-3 in his nine matches,” Brown said. “Somebody forgot to tell Morgan he wasn”t supposed to win.”
The medal is a boost for the Kelseyville wrestling program, according to Brown.
“It was big for him, big for us because of him,” Brown said.
Best of all, according to Brown, is that Nelson deserved it.
“I can”t think of a kid who deserves it more than Morgan,” Brown said. “It topped off the whole season.”
“I was really rooting for Morgan,” Upper Lake coach Tom Cox added.
While Nelson was bringing home a sixth-place medal for the Knights, Chao was placing seventh for Upper Lake at 105 pounds. And like Nelson, Chao just missed in his bid to reach the third-place match, which would have meant a berth in the state tournament.
“Ron (Campos, assistant coach) and I both agree it was as demoralizing a loss as we”ve ever seen,” Cox said of the 10-9 loss Chao suffered against Kevin Coburn of Granada in his second match Saturday.
Leading 9-5 with 12 seconds left, Chao appeared to be on his way to the consolation semifinals.
“We told him to run away, to dive at his ankles (to use up the final seconds),” Cox said. “But he had a momentary lapse.”
Coburn scored a two-point takedown and a three-point near fall in those final seconds to win 10-9.
“He”s done everything you ask a kid to do, so it was hard to see something like that happen to him,” Cox said.
His shot at a state berth gone, Chao regrouped and came back a couple of hours later to pin Christian Lizarraga of San Marin in the first round of their seventh-place match.
“Fwee was devastated after that loss, but he comes back to thoroughly dominate a guy,” Cox said. “That tells you a lot about Fwee. He”s going to go a long way in life. He never gives up.”
Fwee closes out his career at Upper Lake with a 121-53 record, the third-most wins in school history behind fellow senior Brandon Sneathen and Rob Avery, who graduated last year. Sneathen finished third at 142 pounds and is headed to Bakersfield for the state tournament next weekend (see story on Page A6).
