McGrath claims bronze

In the field of sport, it's a rarity that even the best athletes can go out on a win.

Of the roughly 2,100 wrestlers across the state, 896 come to the Nebraska State Wrestling Championships. And only 168 of those — a figure representing just 8 percent of the total participants statewide — walked off the mat with a victory (first, third or fifth place) in the ultimate match of a season and, in some cases, a career.

For the first time in his three trips to State, Ralston's Nick McGrath was one of them.

The Ram senior captured third place Saturday morning in the Class A 126-pound division to put a final, winning gild on a brilliant 37-6 season and a stellar high school career that saw him amass 125 wins.

"My dad has always told me that third is better than second," McGrath said, referencing his father, Jim McGrath, who, as RHS's longtime wrestling coach before his 2005 retirement, knows a thing or two about it. "Coming back Saturday, you have to make peace with what happened Friday night because you've got two superior quality matches right away in the morning. There's no time to dwell."

What happened Friday night for McGrath was the culmination of a good start at State coupled with a tough draw in his weight class.

In the opening round Thursday afternoon, McGrath cruised to a 6-0 decision over Millard South's Nathan Quandt.

Later in the day at the quarterfinal round, he held on for a 2-1 victory over David Kubik of Lincoln East that put McGrath in a semifinal matchup with Grand Island's Trey Trujillo.

Trujillo, coming into State as a favorite at 126 after a State championship last year in the 113-pound class, bested McGrath, 9-1 to set up McGrath's bronze-medal run.

RHS coach Jason Fink said after the loss, he had little doubt McGrath was more than ready to face a grueling Saturday morning and emerge victorious.

"He's worked as hard as any kid in the room," Fink said. "The finish, going out a winner and walking off the mat as a senior, that's something nobody can take away from him and I know he was ready for that."

McGrath agreed and said his mindset coming into Saturday was galvanized toward victory.

"You've got nowhere to hide on Saturday," he said. "You have to refocus. You're wrestling kids who are coming off wins and you're coming off a loss."

In his first consolation match, McGrath held on to a 2-1 victory over Jerred Fox of Lincoln Northeast.

On the other side of the bracket, Papillion-La Vista's Sebastian Kelly, by whom McGrath had been dealt a defeat earlier in the season, won his consolation semifinal to set the stage for the third-place match.

"He beat me earlier in the year and I expected he was going to be tough again," McGrath said.

After the first period ended scoreless, the two grapplers continued to make feints and starts, but without much scoring until McGrath put Kelly in a hold with just under a minute left in period 2.

With 32 seconds left, Kelly managed to escape and score the first point of the match. McGrath was unable to counter and the second period ended with Kelly on top, 1-0.

"Going into the third, it didn't really bother me that I was behind," McGrath said. "I'd been getting close and I felt confident that whole period that it was going to happen. I wasn't going to lose."

Thirty seconds into the final period, McGrath scored an escape of his own to force a 1-1 tie and with 45 seconds left in the match, McGrath brought Kelly to the mat for a two-point takedown and a 3-1 lead.

Kelly spun himself into a two-point reversal at 31 seconds to again tie the match, 3-3 before McGrath managed another escape to take a 4-3 win and ride out the final seconds.

"We've been asking him to really open it all up," Fink said. "And he did. After the quarterfinals, we ran into a little bit of a buzzsaw (in Trujillo), but that was a good test for him and he saw that if he wanted to go out on top, he was going to be ready to open it up."

Trujillo went on to lose in the finals to Hayden Hanson of Creighton Prep, an opponent McGrath defeated 8-4 for his 100th win in December.

McGrath concludes his RHS career just one win shy of the school record, a mark he likely could have broken had the River Cities Conference Duals not been cancelled by inclement weather earlier this month.

But the senior said he goes out right at the point where he wanted to be.

"I'd rather finish the way I finished than have the school record," McGrath said. "That was just kind of a side goal. Having this opportunity, ever since my sophomore year when I didn't get here, I got over the hump last year with a medal, and now this. It's a great feeling.

"It's a huge feeling."

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