Wresting's Track Rabbit - Coach of the Year

In racing, there is an award called the fast rabbit or track rabbit. This award is typically presented to the driver that moves up the most over the course of the race. For example, if you started the race in 20th and ended in 4th you would have moved up 16 positions. Passing drivers is difficult.

This same story is true in wrestling. Two years ago, Maryland had a team that finished the season ranked 39th. Check out our archives - https://www.legacywrestling.com/archives-2023-2024.

This year that team and its coach finished the season ranked #3. No other team in the state over this two year period was even close to this kind of jump.

Furthermore, this coach has put 400 career wins on the mat. McDonogh coach Pete Welch came into the 2025/26 campaign feeling good about the direction of the program after what is now seen as a very quick rebuild.

“We did have some youth, but youth that’s starting to come together and grow,” Welch said. " But we were still a young team with a lot of unknowns. And not a big team with 40 kids in the room. We have a lot of quality kids that are super, super nice kids and workers and want to do well. Just not all of them have the experience yet.”

Sports are evolutionary. It doesn’t matter about the sport/team/level, eventually those at the top will tumble. Many teams have their moment(s) and fade. A few can sustain that success for many years.

As all the greats do, Welch adjusted and put a plan together. It took a couple years, but that restructuring has led to the Eagles once again being a state powerhouse, finishing a 33-3 season that led to Welch being named one of Legacy Wrestling’s Coaches Of The Year.

“Wow, my thoughts on coach of the year,” Welch reflected for a moment. “It’s very humbling as the sport is incredibly humbling and can knock you down, and you pick yourself back up. That’s what you preach to the kids and that’s all we have to do as coaches. And to be considered one the best, amongst so many great coaches we have in our league in our state. It’s very humbling.”

“I actually do think that the past few years, with the groups I’ve had, I’ve done some of my best coaching and lots of times the best coaching is done, and you don’t see the results that the best teams have but yeah, I’m grateful. I’m grateful for the people that are there with me like Josh Fitch, Cameron Harrell, Karl Lindsey, Justin Fitch, Marty Sataloff, and Sammy Jones. They are all people that turned out every day with me and were working for the same goal."

“I’m grateful that I get to do what I do, and I get to continue to do what I do, and hopefully it’s something that I get better at every year and continue to get better and I’m sure they’ll have ups and down still, but it’s a lot of fun working with such great kids and great people."

“Great athletes tend to make great coaches. Our program has been fortunate to have some amazing athletes and kids over the years. The best coaching often goes unrecognized since it might not have tangible results. I like to think I can keep getting better as a coach regardless of the results.”

RAY OLIVER’S PROVING GROUND

As the season has done for many years, with a few exceptions, McDonogh kicked off the season by hosting the 52nd edition of the Raymond B. Oliver Memorial Tournament. It was Welch’s first real peak at what they’ve been cooking up, and the returns were very promising.

McDonogh was sixth at Ray Oliver, 1.5 points behind No. 8 Loyola-Blakefield, and was the third highest finishing Maryland team to No. 1 Archbishop Spalding.

At Ray Oliver, the lineup was missing No. 8 Logan Brown (285) and No. 11 Damian Manna (126), plus No. 12 Cole Genua (144) forfeited his blood round match as the Eagles gave up likely placement points on that. Five wearing orange singlets did reach the podium.

Freshman Braidyn Taby, who finished the year ranked third at 106 pounds, reached the finals in his first high school tournament and was a runner-up. No. 2 Jacob Naylor finished third at 113 and began his year-long entanglement with Spalding’s top-ranked Charlie Mutschler, falling in the semis.

Two sophomores were fourth, No. 5 Wes Baumgartner (132 pounds) and No. 4 Mason Comegys (138). At 190, No. 5 Giuseppe “JJ” DiMonte was seventh. Baumgartner and Comegys, along with Naylor were the first wave of highly decorated junior leaguers with mad success at Kids’ Nationals that signed up a year ago. Taby and Damian Manna, who arrived this season, are from that same cloth.

“Ray Oliver is kind of a tough read for everyone, early in the season,” remarked Welch. “The Loyola kids just came off of football for sure with their Turkey Bowl and we were missing kids out of our varsity lineup. It has become such a grinder of a tournament, something I’m really proud of, but it’s hard to gauge the start of the year based on that event. The kids we had performed well and I thought, once we start getting our lineup back together, everybody healthy, and where we want to be, I thought we’d start to be challenging as a dual meet team.”

EARLY BURNER WITH CURLEY

The MIAA Dual Meet Season is a difficult one due to the fact that most of the matches are held over a three-week period, and the schedulers have no mercy on some teams as a few wrestle back-to-back top ten teams on consecutive days, or three out of six days, every year.

There are a few league duals in December and the Eagles had a meeting with No. 10 Archbishop Curley the week after Ray Oliver, when they were still missing Brown and Manna. Curley almost made them pay for coming in shorthanded as they hung tough in what ended as a 41-36 McDonogh victory.

NO DUST, JUST DIAMONDS FOR THE EAGLES AT CROFTON

As part of Welch’s 2.0 version of the Eagles, he has been embracing mixing it up with public schools in Maryland, which was something their prior scheduling never allowed. They’ve become regulars at C. Milton Wright’s Iron Horse Duals and stepped foot in Crofton’s gym this year for the “Dust Or Diamonds Dual Tournament”.

McDonogh encountered five teams in the state rankings including the No. 26 hosts, who they handled, 66-18, and set aside all other challengers en route to the crown with a 10-0 record. Their closest match came against No. 13 Westminster, who they beat 45-32.

Other ranked foes the Eagles toppled were No. 12 Huntingtown (51-27), No. 29 Northern Calvert (57-20), and No. 35 DeMatha (49-24). In a cool quirk, McDonogh got to take on the Charles County team that shares their name, but with an additional “O” in McDonough and put up a 62-18 tally.

“Yea, we get to see some teams that we don’t normally see, some of the larger public-school teams,” Welch continued. "Westminster, Huntingtown, and some bigger public-school teams with full lineups and lots of kids on the roster, which is always going to be challenging for teams with smaller rosters."

“To go against those kids and kinda be risk free, with no league competition, and get a good test early on, and finish well, and finish on top and come out of the gym with a trophy was something we hadn’t felt in a few years. So, that was good to do.”

NEW YEAR, NEW CHALLENGES

As the shine of the Holiday was slowly fading away, McDonogh was back in action on January 2nd, hosting their two-day Irvin S. Naylor Duals. The Naylor Duals had a modest beginning but has quickly turned into a daunting gauntlet.

Welch invited the number five team in the nation by High School on SI, Faith Christian Academy out of Pennsylvania, who was the number one team when they visited Maryland. They lost their top billing to now No. 1 Buchanan at California’s Doc Buchanan tournament then later lost a dual meet to No. 4 Delbarton from New Jersey.

His Eagles were dealt a 57-15 loss by the Lions and also fell to another national power, Northfield Mount Hermon of Massachusetts, 52-22. McDonogh beat Delaware’s St. George’s Tech, 58-15 to finish Pool A in third.

Those results relegated McDonogh to the Silver Pool, and their win over St. George’s carried over and they would be the one and two teams in the field as the Eagles downed No. 36 Landon, 69-11, and faced Curley again, this time winning 60-9.

“If we flipped it and we did well the first day and poorly on the second day, I might have felt differently coming out of it,” offered Welch. “We lost to some of the best teams in the country, but then to come back and wrestled strong through our pool. Finishing on top of our pool felt good and gave us a lot of confidence going into the dual meet season.”

SPALDING FALLS (AGAIN)

A year ago, a late season dual meet win over Spalding got the attention of the wrestling community and was one of the big signifiers that McDonogh was “back”. That was not expected to happen this year, as the Cavaliers presented quite a formidable lineup.

Much like 2025, a few things broke right for the Eagles along with some timely big wins that left Spalding coach Mike Laidley shrugging once more as a glance at the scoreboard when it was over did not favor the Cavaliers, with McDonogh getting the 34-30 win.

“I don’t know about having their number,” Welch responded laughingly to our inquiry about the Spalding dual win (because in this day and age everything needs to be explained, we of course are only referring to the dual setting since Spalding beat them at Ray Oliver). “But we beat them two years in a row, probably when they were, or might have been on paper better than us.

“I really think coming out of Naylor Duals, their confidence was high. We had some kids come back from injury and we were able to put them in our lineup and they just all performed well. And I think some of that is the craziness of the sport, the craziness of our team, but you know anybody can have their day and it was clearly our day.”

THE GAELS GOT ‘EM

After a few wins over Mt. Carmel, who is a team to keep an eye on, and Boys’ Latin, it was time for the Eagles’ annual dance with Mount St. Joseph. Unfortunately for them, 2025’s pattern would continue here when St. Joe was able to gain the 37-30 dual win.

“That was a frustrating loss,” said Welch. “I think with any dual meet, you can blame it on the coin flip at the beginning and where all the matchups go. Things could have gone differently. We had some kids wrestle really well against St. Joe. And some, if we got the right coin flip, could have gone differently and we win that meet.”

The Gaels’ win would eventually create a three-way tie for the MIAA “A” Conference Dual Championship after Spalding defeated St. Joe in their later meeting.

“But clearly, St. Joe, Spalding, and us, were in the hunt together, probably finishing where we were on paper,” Welch said. “But on any given night, one could beat the other and St. Joe got us that night. But it’s great to be back in that conversation, back in that hunt after we were out of it for a few years.”

RIDING UNSCATHED THROUGH IRON HORSE

Before Welch started building up Naylor, Wright’s coach John Thornton began the process of making his dual showcase quite a meat grinder and he succeeded immensely on that front.

McDonogh ran the table there for their second dual tournament championship by posting an 8-0 record with big wins against No. 19 Stephen Decatur (67-12), No. 21 Linganore (46-24), and No. 32 Brunswick (59-16). Two Delaware forces fell to the Eagles, Smyrna (43-21) and Sussex Central (67-12).

“Going into that event, being able to hit some other teams that we normally don’t see, and seeing other kids, not just MIAA kids every weekend was a good event for us, another good test for us.” Welch said. “And getting a lot of matches. Getting our kids comfortable when the whistle blows. You can practice all you want but you have to be comfortable when that whistle blows and the more times you’re out there, the more comfortable you can get. We continued to grow through that event.”

MORE DUALS AND THE WORTHINGTON CUP RETURNS

Following the Iron Horse supremacy, McDonogh kept on winning duals as it finished off the MIAA season with a 47-24 win over Loyola, a 56-12 drubbing of Calvert Hall, and then closed with a 43-21 win over No. 9 Gilman.

Downing Gilman means the Worthington Cup, which is claimed annually by the winner of this rivalry, is back in the hands of the Eagles after the Greyhounds, under the tutelage of McDonogh alumni Bryn Holmes, had a recent stranglehold on it.

“The Worthington Cup is a big deal,” stated Welch. “What I will say, it’s really become bittersweet with Gilman because one of our family members is over there coaching the team, who I love to beat, but I’m still proud of what he’s done over there. He (Holmes) put together a match, the atmosphere and the competition level was as exciting as you can get. He made it really fun. We just happened to finish on top. That was a great win for our program as well.”

Championship Season

The MIAA Tournament was a three-way race with McDonogh, Spalding, and St. Joe, with them landing in the order of the state rankings with Spalding winning its second straight crown, the Gaels in second, followed by the Eagles in third.

Two champions were crowned and one included redemption for the oft injured DiMonte. Dominick Manna made the move up to 165 pounds for the postseason and capitalized with a gold.

Taby, Naylor, and Brown were second. Grabbing bronze were No. 19 Caden Gardner (157), Baumgartner, Comegys, and Genua. Damian Manna and Taylor placed fourth.

“Coming out of the dual meet season it was a tournament we were hoping to win,” Welch commented. “Knowing that things would have to go our way, I think we were in a position to, if we got lucky (win it). We didn’t quite get the wins where we wanted to. But looking at where all our kids finished, they all finished about where they should have to their seeds. And only one or two just slightly below, but most of them were to their seed or better, so to me, that shows growth.

“The two champs we had, Dominick Manna just made a decision for himself and for the team to move up, and JJ, his journey, I think everybody in the gym might have been rooting for him. It’s one thing with his injuries, but the kid he is and the resilience and how he’s been dialed in through all the injuries, and to come back and win a MIAA Championship was very gratifying.”

McDonogh got back at the platform at the Maryland Independent Schools State Tournament.

Last week’s champs faced setbacks to second (Manna) and fifth (DiMonte) but the rest of the team performed well. In addition to Dominck Manna, Taby, Naylor, and Comegys were second. Gardner was third at 157, Taylor fourth, along with fifth placers, Baumgartner and Genua, and sixth place Damian Manna.

“I think it’s one where we could have done better - I don’t think we were far off. Most of our kids wrestled to their seed or better, but a few didn’t quite get there. And there’s a lot of luck that’s involved. It’s a long season. I’m still really proud of the effort, and again, it was a three-team race to the top and we were on the heels of the two in front of us and on a different day might have caught them. But it wasn’t meant to be that day.”

National Preps revealed more work that needs to be done. Work that will no doubt be put in, and next year more of the Eagles will likely join this year’s only placer, Jacob Naylor at 113 pounds, who landed in eighth.

“I think it’s exciting with him just being a sophomore,” said Welch. “We have some other kids close to getting to that point. It’s a lot like Beast of the East where we need to start getting back to where we were five years ago, with multiple guys placing. I think Jacob getting there and having a super season, he’s improved tremendously, and he’s

got a toughness in competition that really helped him get to those medal rounds.”

IN CLOSING

We at Legacy felt this was one of Welch’s finest coaching jobs and his Eagles certainly outperformed what the pundits thought was capable as they went from 39th to 3rd in less than two years.

“We graduate three seniors from our starting lineup,” Welch elaborated. “It’s always tough to see seniors go but we got a lot of young kids coming up that are excited to be there that are growing and are following their lead. I want to continue to grow the program and get us back to where we were, fighting to be at the top every year.”