Prior to January 16, Clarion had yet to win a dual during the 2025-26 season.

And while the Eagles’ first semester schedule was intentionally tournament-heavy, an 0-3 record entering the New Year still isn’t something any program wants.

Fast forward two-plus weeks, and oh, how much has changed.

Clarion now sits at 6-3 entering Thursday night’s dual against Edinboro — streaming live on FloWrestling at 7:00 p.m. ET) — and will look to extend its winning streak to seven amidst a second-semester turn-of-fortunes.

The turnaround also reflects some of the feelings head coach Keith Ferraro expressed back in October, when he described his team as having had “the best preseason probably since I got the job at Clarion.”

Several months later, the results on the mat are proving to be somewhat prophetic.

“Part of the reason why I thought our preseason was so great was just their attitudes and the way they were approaching training,” Ferraro said.

“Probably the best measure of how good your attitude is, is how you respond when things don’t go your way. And I do think that’s been pretty good for a young team. We started out kind of rough in duals and learned some lessons early on, and the guys just continue to train and stay positive and they’ve responded really well.”

‘Never Stop Wrestling’

A key point of emphasis for the entire Clarion team — through good times and bad — is to never stop wrestling.

And while the notion may sound simple, the 12th-year head coach details how instruction of the lesson is a bit more intricate than you may think.

“It’s to show the other guys on the team what happens when you constantly wrestle and don’t take breaks,” said Ferraro,  a self-described tinkerer, when asked what his ongoing ‘pet project’ is with his 2025-26 team.

“As a coach, I call them micro breaks, because a lot of times if you’re critical of somebody for taking a break while they’re wrestling (it’s like) you’re implying that they laid down (and) took a nap — but you’re not.

“They’re milliseconds, but those moments of relaxation are what cost people scrambles and cost people from scoring.

“The very best high school recruits, they don’t take as many breaks. And the tier of guys that mid-major schools get as recruits, that’s probably the biggest flaw we see coming in. They have a skillset that could win, but they take those momentary breaks at costly times.”

Sophomore 125-pounder Travis Clawson is someone who Ferraro describes as having “figured out the most important part early on.” And with an 18-5 record this season, “you can see the impact it’s having on his success.”

Conditioning — both natural and developed — plays a role in these split-second, difference-making moments. But from Ferraro’s perspective, the required mindset to prevail at the highest level supersedes the physical.

“If you’re wrestling hard, you’re going to be exhausted — your body is going to be physically depleted. But everybody’s tired when they’re wrestling. The difference between the guys who score the points and the guys who lose the scramble is how tough they are when they’re tired.”

Keeping Busy

The same guy who, during his college career, once restored an old Volkswagen bus with zero background knowledge of automobiles — and who built his own LED scoreboards from scratch as a young coach — Ferraro can’t help but add a few undertakings on top of his full-time gig leading the Eagles.

At present, those tasks include writing a dissertation for his Educational Leadership graduate program and probing the market for flipping Teslas whose battery packs have gone bad.

“You’ve got to have a little bit of a hobby, always — even when you’re busy, right?” he said. 

I suppose you do, coach — regardless of how much it contrasts with your day job.

“I realized that old (Tesla) Model X’s and Model S’s were getting ridiculously cheap. So, I’ve been learning about the batteries and how to swap them out. But it’s a little bit high stakes because they’re super high voltage and you can get hurt bad,” said Ferraro with a chuckle. “You’re lucky if it’s just your hair getting singed.”

As for that slightly lower-risk dissertation that he’s working on, the subject is school administrators’ perception of outdoor play and recess.

“I think play is really important when you’re raising kids — like free play and unstructured activity is critical,” he said. “So, that’s what I’m doing it on.”

Names To Watch Down The Stretch

With just four duals left on its schedule, Clarion, like every program, hopes to hit its stride and continue accelerating all the way through the fast-approaching postseason.

Amidst its aforementioned six-dual winning streak, the Eagles certainly appear to be doing just that.

“You just kind of get in the groove of prepping them for weekend competition, and the training kind of takes care of itself,” Ferraro said. “Competition actually sharpens you. You start to see guys really find their spot.”

Nobody is a finished product, of course. However, there are several key names he’ll be counting on with March on the horizon.

One of those (perhaps surprisingly) is true freshman Gabe Lilly.

A Pennsylvania native, Lilly made noise at the Southern Scuffle when he knocked off 2025 bloodround finisher Nick Hamilton of Virginia.

“He (Lilly) came off the mat and I was like, ‘Do you know who that kid was?’” recalled Ferraro.

“And he had no clue. He just went out, wore him out and ran him down and got the win in a real gritty way.”

The young 174-pounder has “exceeded expectations” according to his coach, who follows the praise by emphasizing Lilly’s need to “quit making big mistakes that are costing him.”

Even so, “he’s got the approach that you need to have to be good,” Ferraro said.

Besides Lilly and Clawson — both underclassmen in the program — Clarion could really use stellar swansongs from a pair of seniors.

Neither Joey Fischer nor Alejandro Herrera-Rondon have reached the NCAA Championships in their collegiate careers. And with time running out, it’s a matter of balancing the stress of that closing window with their deep yearning to break through.

“Both of those guys have a feeling that they’ve come up short, and they do have a pressure,” Ferraro said. “They want to succeed. They want to go out with a bang.

“To take a jump in this sport it comes down to a handful of opportunities where the stage is set, and it’s a great opportunity for you to go take one that you hadn’t in the past.

“They’ve got to do that if they’re going to get to the national tournament.”

With a month left until the MAC Championships, the next of those big opportunities draws closer every day for those like Fischer and Herrera-Rondon.

But if they can make every second (and millisecond) count with the time they have left, they just might earn themselves another opportunity — on college wrestling’s grandest stage — before it’s all said and done.

Watch Clarion home duals this season live on Flowrestling.

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Lehigh’s Luke Stanich announced his arrival on the college wrestling scene in a major way two years ago. 

Now, after deferring eligibility for a year and then taking the proper time this season to recover from a summer injury, Stanich has once again declared his presence as a national championship contender. 

Stanich was the #65 overall recruit on FloWrestling’s Big Board coming out of Roxbury, N.J., but by his own admission was only a ‘decent’ recruit.

But once the NCAA Championships wrapped up, concluding Stanich’s freshman season in 2024, college wrestling fans learned of a name to watch for many more seasons to come.

“Obviously, as the season went on, my dream of becoming an NCAA champion was becoming more and more real,” Stanich said. “I evolved from high school, but nobody really had any expectations for me. Then I got to Lehigh and improved every single day in the room and just seeing the growth on the mat built my confidence.

“I know that season sparked my trajectory up until now. I’m very grateful for that first season.”

That freshman season, Stanich entered the Lehigh lineup at 125 pounds. Although his action was limited during the entire year because of the weight cut, the results paid off.

He captured a Midlands Championship in late December, then rolled to the EIWA title. Then in Kansas City, he placed fifth in his NCAA bracket, including a win over returning national finalist Matt Ramos of Purdue to secure the podium finish and All-American honors.

“That weight cut was brutal,” Stanich said. “I hope I never go back down in weight like that ever again. Despite that cut, that season will probably always be one of my favorite years of wrestling.”

Stanich and the coaches knew, even before his freshman season, that 125 pounds was not going to be his weight moving forward, despite the All-American season. They used the strategy of only weighing in for “probably less than half of the duals” and going to tournaments to get matches.

“As soon as that first weight cut, we knew,” Stanich said. “But I fully committed to it that freshman season. I knew that if I was going to do it, it was going to be a one-year thing.

“I was a little chubby going into that freshman season, so I had the body fat to get down, but just barely. It was brutal, and I was definitely counting down the days to the end of the season, but it just made me even more hungry to get to the top of that podium.”

After that season, they devised a plan for Stanich, which included deferring a year of eligibility last year to properly make his way up to 141 pounds. He did not get to put on the Lehigh singlet last season but knew the patience would pay off while adjusting to the new weight properly.

“I think a lot of times when people go up a weight class, they have to bulk up and sometimes it's hard to adjust for them,” Stanich said. “But for me, I spent that summer lifting and within a few months I was a good-sized 141-pounder. I think it was just like a natural transition for me.

“And honestly, I feel better not cutting as much weight. Once I step on the mat, I feel more energized and stronger.”

Despite the natural transition to the new weight class, it had a different feel for Stanich.

“When I was 125, I was definitely a lot longer than my opponents, so I wasn't really taking a lot of committed attacks,” Stanich said. “At 141, I was challenged to learn to move my hands a little better and set shots better.”

The year spent away from collegiate competition provided one of the best opportunities for Stanich. He was able to train full-time and focus solely on freestyle for the U20 World Championships this past August.

Stanich went to Bulgaria and brought home a gold medal, going 5-0 at 65 kg. The run started with one of the best comebacks you will see. He trailed 8-0 in the first period, just a takedown away from losing by a tech, but stormed back before he closed the match, winning by his own tech.

In the final, he edged Japan’s Reiji Uchida, 4-3, and draped the U.S. flag around his back in celebration as he took his victory lap.

“Being a World Champion was never one of my goals before I came to Lehigh, but after this experience, I want to be a Senior-level (champion) and Olympic champion,” Stanich said. “I’ll have that memory for the rest of my life. I can always look back and cherish those moments.

“Hearing the National Anthem play when you are on top of that podium, that is just a one-of-a-kind experience. That built my confidence knowing that I was doing right in that absence.”

Unfortunately, Stanich came out of the U20s banged up, and that forced him to miss the first few weeks of the collegiate season. He did not make his season debut until Jan. 10 versus rival Cornell.

“That was tough, going to practice and watching everybody else and not being able to be out there in the middle of that grind,” he said. “But sitting on the sidelines for duals was a whole different story. That definitely hurt.

“But I just knew I had to do what was right, and that was to take the necessary time to recover. When I got back full-time, I felt a little less mobile and not the best version of myself. But I feel myself getting better each week and getting back to full form now.”

In a loaded 141-pound weight class, Stanich sits at a perfect 9-0 as the dual season is nearing an end. His remaining slate features three ranked wrestlers among the four dual matchups left on the Lehigh schedule, before he goes for a second EIWA conference title.

“I’m very excited for the rest of this season because I know what I’m capable of,” Stanich said. “I feel like in my absence, the first half of the season, a lot of people kind of forgot about me. I'm seeing a lot of chat about who everybody thinks is going to be the national finals match. And in my head, I just know that that's me. I'm that guy.

“I think about wrestling, getting my hands on those top guys every single day. It just gives me something to push myself towards.”

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