Morris Nabs Third at NCS, Heads to State Championships

’s will be taking the back road to Bakersfield next week, but he will be going nonetheless.

One win away from clinching a berth in the California State Wrestling Championships, Morris suffered a 6-2 semifinal loss to top-seeded Curtis Siegfried of powerful De La Salle at the North Coast Section Championships on Saturday.

That pushed the Redwood junior into the 160-pound consolation bracket, where the fourth seed won a pair of matches -- 13-8 over Orion Cosce of Hoopa and 11-6 over third-seeded Adam Busch of Castro Valley -- to finish third in NCS and assure he’ll be an invited guest at next week’s state finals.

"We expected him to finish this high," Redwood co-coach Paul Schloesser admitted. "We were hoping he could make the finals. It was 50-50 chance he wouldn't have to wrestle Siegfried (in the semifinals)."

Morris was one of five Marin County Athletic League (MCAL) wrestlers to earn a trip to the State Championships on a memorable weekend for the league. San Marin's Christian Lizarraga earned the MCAL's first NCS title since 2002, leading the five-wrestler contingent that's the league's largest ever.

The key to Morris earning the trip was his attitude after the loss to Siegfried.

"He wanted to wrestle him again," praised Schloesser. "Dylan wants to beat the best guys."

Five other Redwood wrestlers, including Dylan’s brother , combined to win four matches at the NCS competition.

Nathan Morris, a freshman competing in the 145-pound division, was pinned in his first and last matches, but managed to pin one opponent and record a lopsided 17-0 win in between.

The pin came 3:22 into his consolation-bracket match against Jose Ramirez of San Leandro. The big win was over a senior, Bobby Rodriguez of Clayton Valley.

Sophomore (119) and senior (13) recorded Redwood’s other wins.

"As a young team coming into NCS and getting wins, that's great," Schloesser assessed. "Even kids who were not wrestling stuck around to the very end to watch (the finals). They all want to win."