Jan 6, 2026 By Jerin Steele 4 min read

Coming off a season in which they made the WPIAL semifinals and qualified for states, there’s an air of confidence in the McGuffey wrestling room.

When they look around at each other, they see most of the same people who contributed to that run and they’ve continued it into this season.

The Highlanders have won all eight of their dual meets, including three wins against Class 3A schools, Waynesburg, Central Catholic and Seneca Valley. They also finished third at the Tri-CADA tournament over the weekend and had two champions (Lucas Barr and Tucker Main) and four finalists.

They are not resting on what they’ve accomplished. They’re striving for more. These guys aren’t cocky, but they believe they are as good as they were last year and as their coach I believe that,” McGuffey coach Jared Roberts said. “We’ve got most of our core group back and it gives them a lot of confidence how well last year went, knowing that a lot of the guys who did that are back on the team.”

Barr bested Bentworth’s Drake McClure with a 7-2 decision to secure his second Tri-CADA title. Main won a 9-2 decision over Trinity’s Gavin Bricker in the 121-pound final.

Barr is 19-1 this season, while Main is 18-2.

“He’s a three-time state qualifier that has had aspirations to bring home a medal and it just hasn’t worked out yet,” Roberts said of Barr. “He was in the blood round the last two years at states, so he has a big goal of bringing home some hardware from Hershey.

“Tucker is back at the same weight as he was last year and he did well. He might have been a little bit undersized last year, but this year he’s one of the biggest guys at that weight and that’s helped him.”

Emmett Wolfe recently returned to the McGuffey lineup and made it to the 145-pound final where he lost to Canon-McMillan’s Collier Hartman. Aaron Supler was the other finalist, falling to Jefferson-Morgan’s Alek Palko at 172.

Clayton Ealy (127) and Victor Bonus (152) finished in third place and Garrett Newman (160) placed fifth.

McGuffey was the top Class 2A school. Canon-McMillan and Trinity were the only two teams to score more points.

The balance in the Highlanders’ lineup showed through, which is what makes them dangerous in dual meets.

Each one of them wants to have success individually, but they also value team results.

“All of those guys are the heart of our lineup,” Roberts said. “Most of them are seniors, but we have a couple guys, Clayton and Tucker, who are a junior and sophomore. Those guys, as far as the team aspect goals, most of the time we can count on getting a fall or tech fall out of each of those guys and that’s huge.”

McGuffey has Wash High, West Greene and Chartiers-Houston in their section. The first section match is against the Prexies tonight.

Roberts said they do their best to focus on both individual and team success. Tri-CADA was a good place to focus on individuals and this weekend the Highlanders will head to a team event, the Virginia Duals at the Hampton Coliseum.

It’ll be a good test against some top teams from around the country.

“It’s something that McGuffey went to years ago and I wanted to go, because it’s probably the toughest dual meet event in the country,” Roberts said. “I believe it was the first dual tournament in the country when they started it in the 1980s. It’s pretty cool. It’s in a big arena and it has 16 different teams in each high school bracket. There’s a college bracket too, so you get to go see some college wrestling while you’re there.”