Foothill's Derik Rizo just lost his third-round consolation match, becoming the 12th Kern County wrestler to be eliminated today. That leaves 15 still alive for a state medal — six in the championship quarterfinals and now nine in the consolation bracket.

Here are your local quarterfinalists:

Marc Collier, East, 103
Edgar Diaz, Arvin, 103
Peter Gonzalez, East, 112
Jonah Cruz, Bakersfield, 140
Travis Rasmussen, Bakersfield, 145
Robert Rios, Liberty, 145

Rios is definitely the surprise of the group. He's beaten champions from the Sac-Joaquin (very impressive) and Los Angeles City (less so) Sections and then took out the Southern Section's No. 4 seed in a tight match in the round of 16. He'll face Jesse Cruz, the No. 5 SS wrestler from Northview, in the quarterfinals. Big opportunity there.

As for those left in the consolation brackets, they've got to win two more matches just to make it through the night. Then, tomorrow morning, the first consolation round (against quarterfinal losers) will determine state placers. It's the "Cinderella" round, as some coaches like to say.

We'll keep you up to date here, but I'd say we're looking at about 10 Kern County kids still alive at the end of the night. The county had just four placers last year.