Sharply dressed in their blue- and white warm-ups, members of the Malvern Prep boys wrestling team claimed a mat for themselves at the 2024 Escape the Rock tournament — quite the accomplishment with 58 other teams in attendance and only eight mats. “We try to do that … clear you out,” says Nate Lautar, who’s been the head wrestling coach at his alma mater for the past 11 years.
“We’ve gotten so good. People are weird about it.”
–Malvern head coach Nate Lautar
To loosen up, other teams ran circles around the Friars before the wrestling began. But once the referees’ whistles blew for the two-day bonanza, the opposite was true. Malvern Prep claimed its fourth consecutive title at the prestigious tournament, finishing ahead of Quakertown’s Faith Christian Academy, another of the nation’s finest scholastic wrestling teams. There’s no reason not to expect the same result at this year’s event, which takes place Jan. 18-19 at Bucks County’s Council Rock High School South.

With one of the country’s most competitive scholastic schedules, Malvern Prep has blossomed into a national powerhouse. With a 2024-25 schedule that hadn’t begun at press time, the team was ranked anywhere from 15th to 23rd in the country according to various preseason polls. They peaked at No. 1 nationally in 2021. Though Escape the Rock is an impressive annual stop, the Friars typically hit three other tournaments with more impact on the national scene: the Ironman in Ohio; Powerade in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania; and Beast of the East at the University of Delaware.

Since Lautar took over as head coach, more than 30 Malvern wrestlers have landed at Penn State, Ohio State, North Carolina, Stanford, Cornell, Brown, Northwestern and other universities with top Division I collegiate wrestling programs. Locally, they’ve won a dozen straight Inter-Ac League championships, even when sending members of both their A and B teams. In 2023, the Friars beat Kingston, Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Seminary to take their first-ever Pennsylvania Independent Schools Wrestling Tournament. They came in second last year.
The Friars have been on such a roll that other quality teams have canceled on them. Toward the end of last season, both Bethlehem Catholic and Notre Dame high schools pulled out of dual meets, presumably to prevent additional individual or team losses and avoid possible injuries that could affect the postseason. “We’ve gotten so good, people are weird about it,” Lautar says.
But success can have unintended ripple effects. Some say Malvern Prep and other elite scholastic wrestling programs are creating a talent vacuum on the local level. As in: Why should a wrestler bother weighing in for a weekday Inter-Ac match when he has a mega-tournament in Ohio that weekend? Few can speak better to this phenomenon than Steve Harner. One the state’s best coaches, he built a highly reputable program at Norristown Area High School, spent six years as Conestoga’s head coach and is now easing into retirement as an assistant at Bethlehem Catholic. Harner contends that mega-tournaments and “private school pull” have hollowed out scholastic wrestling’s middle class. Aside from the recent sanctioning and growth of girls wrestling, public schools battle to retain their better wrestlers and generate enough interest among boys to maintain their programs. “It hasn’t been good for the sport,” he says. “But it has been good for kids.”

In 2006, when Nate Lautar returned to Malvern Prep as an assistant to coach Chris McKeon, there were eight boys in the wrestling room. Germantown Academy had won eight straight Inter-Ac titles, and no Friar wrestled well enough to advance to the second day of any national-level tournament. With good friend and fellow Malvern wrestling alum Todd Brennan, Lautar established the Malvern Wrestling Club. Then, with support from an army of loyal families, he set up a development fund to help students with need-based financial aid. It’s since generated over $750,000 for a rich pool of homegrown wrestling talent referred to by insiders as the “band of brothers” or “the brotherhood.”
Other national-level competitors give scholarships and offer boarding; some have recruiters. Malvern doesn’t offer boarding, and the radius of wrestlers’ hometowns is almost entirely within an hour’s drive. Nick Feldman is one of the more extreme cases. Currently a World Team member wrestling at Ohio State, Feldman made the one-hour trek from Quarryville to Malvern every school day. The same now applies to his two younger brothers—Jake, who’s in seventh grade, and Mark, a sophomore.
Along with Michael Beard, Feldman is the most accomplished wrestler in the history of the school. Both athletes went undefeated in their last three years at Malvern. “Would Nick be what he’s become if he stayed at Solanco High School? Who knows? My job is to open doors,” Lautar says. “Still, it’s a total misconception of how I get the kids I do. I don’t steal anybody.”
“With the help of an army of loyal families, Lauter established a development fund to help students with need-based financial aid. It’s since generated over $750,000 for a rich pool of homegrown wrestling talent referred to by insiders as the ‘Band of Brothers’ or ‘The Brotherhood.”
Nick O’Neill used to hitch a ride to Malvern with his mom from their home in Philadelphia’s Fishtown section. He graduated last year after finishing fourth at National Preps as freshman, third as sophomore, and second as a junior and senior. His younger brother, Matt, may be more of a natural, taking second at National Preps as an eighthgrader last season. “There’s definitely a lot of talent that comes into the room [at Malvern],” says Nick, who’s continuing his academic and athletic career at the University of North Carolina. “But even when you’re not the best, the coaches get behind you—and you get better, no matter what.”
Vito Consiglio’s son, Jack, finished his career last season as a three-time National Prep champion in his weight class. Now a freshman at Stanford, he’s one of 20 individual national champions from Malvern. Just about all of those champs have come under Lautar’s tenure.
“I have pictures of the same 11 guys standing together as 6- and 7-year-olds in the youth program, and then again at the Ironman,” says Consiglio, who’s the team photographer. “It’s the same guys in the same photos 10 years later—guys like Jack and Nick Wehmeyer.”
Ranked fourth nationally in his weight class as a senior, Wehmeyer chose lacrosse over wrestling and is now a freshman at Yale University. He and Consiglio started wrestling at Malvern as sixth-graders. By then, they’d already been in its club program for six years.
For more than 12 years, Consiglio made his way from Lansdale to the Malvern Prep campus, where school days began at 7 a.m. and ended at 7 p.m. “We all grew up together. We were all club kids,” he says. “Any transfer who comes in isn’t a club kid—not a Malvern kid. The others who recruit across the nation have no relationships other than the wrestling. That’s toxic.”
Jim Stewart Jr. is Malvern Prep’s athletic director. Like Lautar, he was a born and bred in Delaware County and attended Malvern, where he swam and played baseball, graduating in 1986. Stewart returned to his alma mater in 2019 after a 27-year stint as athletic director at Holy Ghost Prep in Bucks County. Fittingly, his late father, Jim, spent 44 years at Malvern, retiring as school president.
“We’re of the mindset that we build and don’t replace—and that takes patience,” says Stewart of the Friars sports program. “We have no room for transfers. That’s not how we operate.”
Lautar concurs. “Every single kid on our roster started wrestling with us in the youth program,” he says. “No one gave me a million dollars and said, ‘Go get a team.’ It has taken years.”
Lauter grew up in Broomall and spent his Catholic school years at St. Anastasia School in Newtown Square, a block from where he still lives. After their stepfather slipped into a methyl-bromide-induced coma while spraying fruits with pesticides, an anonymous donor covered the tuition for Lautar and his identical twin brother, Jason, so they could stay at Malvern beyond their sophomore year. Both wrestled for the school and graduated in 1998. Lautar’s brother joined the U.S. Navy and is a former commanding officer of the U.S.S. Michael Murphy in Hawaii. At press time, he was stationed in Washington, D.C., as a military assistant to the secretary of defense.
Meanwhile, Lautar has hired an elite and extensive coaching staff to bolster his own skill set and sweat equity. Nate Wachter was a two-time National Prep champion at Germantown Academy and a four-time NCAA qualifier at Penn State. Mazen Kholi hails from the wrestling-rich Lehigh Valley and attended University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. Ira Miles is a Main Line native who’s had head coaching jobs at Woodlynde School, Phelps School and Springfield Township High School. “You have to find your culture—your place on the spectrum,” says Miles of negotiating the prep school environment.
“One of the state’s best coaches, Steve Harner contends that mega-tournaments and ‘private school pull’ have hollowed out scholastic wrestling’s middle class. Public schools battle to retain their better wrestlers and generate enough interest among boys to maintain their programs.”
Former coach McKeon is also helping out, along with other Friars wrestling standouts. “It’s unbelievable what he’s made this into,” says Kholi of Lautar.
Another assistant, Ben Tuohey, is a 2016 Malvern alum who started wrestling for Lautar at age 7. His best finish at National Preps was eighth as a senior. Still, he had the gumption to walk on his freshman year at Penn State. His indoctrination was a 90-minute mat session with Nittany Lions assistant coach Jake Varner, an Olympic gold medalist in 2012. “I guess I passed the test,” says Tuohey. “I must’ve done alright, even in losing 100-0.”
As a wrestler, Lautar never placed at National Preps. “I wasn’t the best,” he says. “I was good, but not even close to accomplishing what our guys do today.”
Jack Consiglio was so emotional he was barely audible after stepping off the victory podium this past February at the National Prep Wrestling Championship on the Lehigh University campus. “I’m happy but sad in just into something—and then to finally do it,” says Consiglio, Malvern Prep’s only national champion in 2024. “The American tradition tells you to work harder to accomplish more. My parents made me think that was part of life, and they believed in me—so many people did. I’ve been obsessed with the sport. People don’t understand the obsession part of it.”
His senior year, Consiglio’s most recent trophies and medals sat in a pile atop a chest of drawers, covered in clothes and other things typically found in a teenage boy’s bedroom. “I didn’t ever look at them,” he says. “I thought if I looked at them, it would mean I was satisfied. But I think I will after this.”