Submitted photos – The Del Norte wrestlers and coaches celebrate their third-place finish at this year’s NCS championships.
By Ray Hamill — It was a memorable year for so many teams in the H-DNL, but one had bigger impact than any.
In the immortal words of the legendary Tina Turner, the Del Norte boys wrestling team was “simply the best” here on the North Coast and that makes the Warriors our choice for the 2025 Humboldt Sports High School Team of the Year.
The Warriors are succeeding on and off the mats, and no local program left a bigger mark in North Coast Section sports this past year.
In addition to winning a second consecutive Division-II Redwood Empire Dual Meet championship, the Del Norte boys went on to place third overall in the NCS championships out of 105 teams.
And remember, NCS wrestling does not feature different divisions like every other sport, so the Warriors were the third best team in the entire section, an incredible achievement for a school the size of Del Norte.
Under the guidance of head coach Clinton Schaad and his staff, the Warriors have built a dynasty and it’s showing no signs of slowing down with a depth of talent in just about every class.
In addition to the success at the NCS level, the Warriors also won a seventh consecutive H-DNL title, claiming five of the 14 individual boys titles and comfortably outdistancing the rest of the league teams.
Seniors Curtis Bartley and Colton Schaad led the way and were named the league championship most outstanding lower and upper weight wrestlers, respectively.
Their teammates Alexander “Ozzy” Osborne, Remington Escobedo and Davion Johnson each also won an individual league crown.
The outstanding Bartley would go on to win a second straight NCS title, with Escobedo also winning a section crown, and that duo then advanced to the state championships, along with Colton Schaad.
The young Schaad capped an incredible career by finishing in the top-16 at the state meet, the furthest any Del Norte wrestler has gone since the legendary Bronk McCovey won back-to-back state titles in 2009 and 2010.
The 2025 Del Norte seniors
The five Del Norte seniors who will continue their wrestling careers in college, from left to right Curtis Bartley, Braydan Johnson, Colton Schaad, Alex “Ozzy” Osborne and James Gensaw Jr.
But all of that arguably wasn’t even the most impressive thing about this year’s team.
This is a program that is succeeding on and off the mats, and the Warriors are sending five of their grapplers — Schaad, Bartley, Osborne, Braydan Johnson and James Gensaw Jr. — on to compete in the sport in college, which is the most for the program in one year in more than two decades.
“We feel like what we’re doing is working,” Clinton Schaad said.
It’s difficult to argue that assessment, and that’s why the Del Norte Warriors are the 2025 Humboldt Sports High School Team of the Year.
Congratulations to the Warriors and to all of the finalists for this year’s award.
The Humboldt Sports High School Team of the Year is one of six awards we’ll be handing out this week, along with our Coach of the Year, our Big 5 Boys and Girls Athletes of the Year and our Little 4 Boys and Girls Athletes of the year.
Stay tuned over the next two days for all of our award winners.
And as always, a big shout out and thank you to the award sponsors, a group that includes The Humboldt Fence Company, DelReka Distributing, Mendes Supply Company and Bode Construction, all of whose support will help to pay for the trophies.
