Nate Desmond and Kollin Rath might both be freshmen, but the two Bethlehem Catholic wrestlers don’t act like it on the mats.

Desmond and Rath claimed their second straight gold medals in as many weeks after capturing the Northeast Regional 3A titles at Liberty’s Memorial Gymnasium over the weekend.

Both freshmen now hope they can make it three in a row this week when they head to the Giant Center in Hershey for the PIAA tournament.

Desmond has been on a tear the past two weeks against the competition, pinning four of his six opponents, as the nation’s second-ranked 106-pounder has made things look easy, just as he did in last week’s regional 13-2 major decision over Luke Sirianni of Abington Heights.

The defeat was the first of the season for Sirianni, who took sixth in state last year and looked overmatched against Desmond the entire time.

Desmond now has his sights set on a state gold medal this weekend, as the freshman is the likely favorite to bring home the crown.

“Winning states has always been the goal,” said Desmond. “You never know what’s going to happen, but if I could do that I’d be pretty proud of myself. You always have to have confidence to win, but also understand that you can be beaten any day. I just try my best to go out there and score points. I think I’ve done a good job of that so far in the postseason.”

Rath coasted through the 132-pound bracket last week, posting three falls before scoring a major decision over Nazareth’s Ayden Rader.

Heading to Hershey is something Rath has done since being a youth wrestler and is excited for the chance to compete on the Giant Center mats.

“I’ve been wrestling since I was six and heading to Hershey since I was eight years old, so I’m really looking forward to it,” said Rath. “I just want to go out there and wrestle my best. If I can do that, the results will come.”

Both wrestlers hope those results end up in gold medals, as the Hawks are taking a contingent of 10 wrestlers to the tournament, including six regional champions, as they took second in the team race to Nazareth, falling in the team race by a 260-254.5 point margin.

Outside of the Desmond and Rath, Cael McIntyre (120), Tyler Kasak (138), Andrew Harmon (145) and Luke Thomas (172) all won titles as well.

McIntyre topped Nazareth’s Charlie Bunting 4-0 to win his crown, while Kasak pinned Brian Heard of Abington Heights in 2:43 to win his third regional crown. Kasak will look to repeat as a state champion this weekend.

Harmon scored a 10-0 major decision over Nazareth’s Nick Foster, while Thomas continued to show his improvement in a 7-3 decision over Abington Height’s Caleb Marzolino.

The Hawks also had three silver medalists in Dante Frinzi (126), Jake Dailey (152) and Landon Muth (160).

Cole Campbell (113) makes a trip to Hershey with a third-place finish at 113. Elijah Thompson (HWT) missed the cut by a spot after taking fifth.

Wrestling gets underway at 4 p.m. Thursday in 3A action with Friday’s quarterfinal round starting at 2:15 p.m., running straight through the third round of consolations at 5 p.m.

Saturday’s semifinals will start at 9 a.m. The finals and the rest of the medal rounds will take place at 7 p.m.