Four boys and three girls from the Mercersburg wrestling squad competed at the National Prep Tournament at Lehigh University (Bethlehem, PA) from February 23-25, and while none of them placed, there were many strong performances.

On the boys' side, all four wrestlers went 1-2 including Ethan Shirk '27 (126 pounds), Gavin Boyd '27 (165), Hayden Shirk '24 (175), and Luke Hendricks '24 (215). For the girls', Elise Gao '26 went 0-2 at 107 pounds while Cocona Yamamoto '25 was 1-2 at 120 and Marlo Williams won twice at 145, ending up 2-2 for the tournament.

Head coach Matt Shirk commented, "All of the Mercersburg wrestlers who qualified for Nationals wrestled well. However, each weight class was stacked with nationally ranked wrestlers. It's one thing to qualify for Nationals, but it's a completely different thing being there. Marlo was the only wrestler to make it through to the "blood round", which is the last round before placement."

Coach Shirk went on to say that "Aside from losing Hayden and Luke next year, both of whom will be hard, if not impossible to replace, we are a young team with a lot of talent. Two of our four ninth-grade recruits qualified for Nationals while the other two lost in the blood round at States. We have a great group of rising 11th and 12th-graders who are competitive as well. Also, next year's recruiting class looks strong with a lot of talent. That said I'm excited to see what next season brings."