Morgan caps perfect season with state meet gold medal

Steve Kodad/McCook Daily Gazette Nate Morgan (right) of McCook controls Jon Curzon of Bennington in the Class B 119-pound championship finals Saturday at the state wrestling meet in Omaha. Morgan, a senior, finished a perfect season with a 7-1 win over Curzon. Nate finished the year with a 35-0 record and his first state meet gold medal after finishing second at 103 pounds as a sophomore and third at 112 his junior year. [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

Nate Morgan had placed at the Class B state meet twice before. But he had never reached his goal of winning a state championship.

That changed last Saturday afternoon at the Qwest Center in Omaha. Morgan capped a brilliant senior campaign when he won a 7-1 decision over Jon Corzon of Bennington in the 119-pound championship match.

Steve Kodad/McCook Daily Gazette Nate Morgan (top) of McCook is tangled with KC Block of Beatrice during the 119-pound semifinal match at the Class B state wrestling meet last Friday night in Omaha. Morgan beat Block en route to a 35-0 season and the state championship. [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

Morgan finished his final year of high school wrestling with a perfect 35-0 season.

The son of Mike and Jill Morgan of McCook now has three state meet medals in three tries. Nate finished second in the Class B 103-pound division as a sophomore when he lost in the finals to Zach Cottle of Omaha Skutt Catholic. Last year, Morgan advanced to state with a perfect record. He met Cottle again in the 112-pound semifinals, the the Skutt senior beat Morgan again. Nate came back last year to place third at state.

In his final state meet last weekend, Morgan had several tough matches en route to the championship finals. In Thursday morning's opening round, Nate wona 6-2 decision over Joshua Moody of Fairbury. In Thursday's quarterfinals, Morgan topped Esgardo Acosta by the same 6-2 score. Morgan topped KC Block of Beatrice, 4-1, in Friday night's semifinal round.

The Bison senior entered state with the huge undefeated target on his back. He didn't feel that he wrestled his best in Thursday's action, but he gave his opponents credit for a strong effort.

"I wrestled some good wrestlers," he said. "It was a lot better (competition) than I expected it was going to be, and that was good."

Key early takedown in finals

Morgan wasted little time Saturday establishing control against Curzon, a Bennington junior bringing a 35-2 record into the championship match. Morgan had never faced Curzon before Saturday's title match, and Nate and his McCook coaches really didn't have a scouting report on the Bennington junior.

"They just told me to go out there and wrestle my match, just to take control of the match," Nate said.

Morgan shot for a takedown at the opening whistle, and he scored about five seconds into the match.

"My strategy was to take him down and hold him down, but if he gave me any trouble on the bottom to just let him up and try to take him down again, and just stay in control the whole match," Morgan said.

Curzon scored an escape about 15 seconds into the match, and both wrestlers battled for position for the rest of the opening period. Morgan got another takedown shot with the first period time ticking away, and he gained control with seconds left for a 4-1 match lead.

State meet veteran

McCook head coach Nick Umscheid said the game plan for Morgan in the finals was to use his state meet experience and to win the battle when the combatants were in the neutral position.

"That was part of the game plan, to win the battle on our feet," Umscheid said. "I think the reason Nate got (the takedown) so early was experience. Nate's been in a state final, and you could kind of see that the other kid was looking up in the crowd, looking at the big lights, maybe a little bit shell-shocked. Nate took advantage of that early on in the match. When I saw him get that first takedown early on, I knew that we had a pretty good shot in the match.

"The game plan going in was win the battle on our feet, try to be on top as much as we could, and try to stay out of the bottom position. We found out that guys that were scouting us thought that that was our weakest area, which it probably is, being on the bottom. We were trying to stay out of that situation as much as possible.

"The goal was to come away at the end of the first period up 4-1, to get two takedowns in that first period, and luckily we did. That's why he cut the kid (left Curzon out for the one-point escape) early in the match after that first takedown, so there was plenty of time to get that second takedown. Luckily things went our way."

Morgan deferred the choice of position to start the second period. Curzon chose down, and Morgan rode him the entire two minutes to maintain the 4-1 lead. In the third period, Morgan had the choice, and he picked neutral (both wrestlers on their feet). Morgan scored a point on a technical violation by Curzon midway through the last period. Nate scored another takedown with 40 seconds to go, then he controlled the Bennington wrestler on the mat to finally claim a state meet gold medal.

Morgan said his previous state meet experience paid dividends this year.

"It was a good experience. I was pretty relaxed," he said. "My sophomore year when I was in the finals, I was real jittery and really pumped for it. This year I was pretty relaxed before my match. I think that's just because I've been here before. It helped."

Doesn't hear the crowd

A loud McCook contingent sat in the Qwest Center grandstands near Morgan's mat for the finals. The Bison faithful cheered loudly every time Morgan scored, but Nate said he really didn't hear his cheering section.

"I don't really hear anything except my coach, usually that's the only thing I hear," he said. "I don't necessarily hear the other (opposing) coach. Just from hearing (Coach Umscheid's) voice so much, I've pretty much trained myself that that's the only thing that I hear when I'm out there wrestling."

Nate's mom is a regular on the edge of the mat for his matches, as she takes photos of the action. Jill is usually very calm while she works behind the lens during Nate's matches.

"I think she'd be more apt to start praying for me rather than to start screaming for me," Nate said.

Morgan is a deeply modest and religious young man. In an interview following his state title Saturday, he was asked about his feelings after winning the gold medal and his undefeated season.

"It feels pretty good; yeah, it's soaking in," he said in a calm, collected voice.

Team leader

Coach Umscheid said Morgan's senior season was very impressive.

"Not many guys can call themselves a state champion tomorrow, and even less can say they are an undefeated state champion," he said following Saturday's finals. "You could take it even a little bit further -- there's only been one time that anyone's scored an offensive point against Nate (this season), and that was Thursday in the (state) tournament, and actually that was off Nate's mistake. He was taking a little bit too risky move and it cost him two points. Other than that, nobody even scored on Nate (offensively) all year long.

"That's just complete dominance. That's a result of a lot of hard work, not just during the season but in the off-season, wrestling in the spring and summer, going to the camps during summer and just being an all-year-round wrestler. Things like that pay off for him. Nobody deserves this more than a guy like Nate Morgan."

Umscheid said Morgan is a very humble young man who was the leader on the Bison team this year.

"Like I've told other people, I think Nate almost got more enjoyment out of helping other people out and seeing them being successful more that he did out his own success," Umscheid said. "I think it kind of helped him take some of the pressure off himself by helping the people around him and focusing a lot of his attention on those guys. It paid off for our team.

"This is probably the first time since I've been in McCook that we had a true senior leader on the team that kind of took charge of the team and said, 'We're going to do things this way. You guys are going to follow me and we're going to do it the right way.' It paid off for our underclassmen. It's really nice when you have seniors like that on the team. They don't just automatically happen -- it takes a special person to take on that responsibility and also have the respect of his teammates that they actually listen and follow what he says."

Next: college choices

Morgan said he will begin concentrating on college. He wants to wrestle in college, possibly at Big 10 Conference powerhouse. The Nittany Lions are coached by former Iowa State standout Cael Sanderson. Nate said he has a friendly relationship with Penn State assistant coach Casey Cunningham.

"I don't know how it gets much better than Penn State, except the fact that it's so far away," he said. "I still need to visit some more colleges to be able to make my decision for sure."

With Sanderson taking over the Penn State program, Morgan labeled the Nittany Lions as an "upcoming number-one program."

Morgan said he might possibly like to become an athletic trainer in the future.