GORHAM — Daniel Del Gallo entered the season with one goal: to get back to the NCAA Division III wrestling championships and this time earn All-America honors with a top-eight finish.

Now the University of Southern Maine senior is thinking he might have set his sights a bit too low.

“I want to be a national champion,” Del Gallo said after a recent practice. “That’s the goal, and I think I have the capabilities to do it as a wrestler and I’m going to try my best.”

Del Gallo improved to 32-0 this season on Saturday when he won the 149-pound title at Plymouth State’s 10-team Jim Aguiar Invitational. Del Gallo won all four of his matches in convincing fashion, with one technical fall (winning by 15 points) and three major decisions (victory margin of 8 to 14 points). Thirty of his wins have been by major decision, technical fall or pin.

“That’s what I’m trying to do in every match and that’s a lot of what the coaches are trying to instill in us as a whole team,” said Del Gallo, the 2013 Maine Sunday Telegram Wrestler of the Year while at Gardiner High.

The emphatic wins are proof Del Gallo listened to second-year coach Mike Morin, a two-time All-America (2009, 2010) at USM.

“Last year at the nationals he went 2-2 and lost in the match to place, and he wasn’t opening up as much as he should have. He was wrestling conservatively,” Morin said. “Now he’s on the attack. It’s a mental change for him. He’s always had all the tools.”

Wrestlers qualify for the national meet by placing in the top three at one of the six regional championships. Morin said the Northeast Regional is one of the toughest in the country. Three teams are ranked in the top six nationally: No. 3 Johnson & Wales, No. 4 Ithaca and No. 6 Roger Williams.

The Northeast Regional is Feb. 25-26 at Roger Williams in Bristol, Rhode Island. The NCAA championships are March 10-11 at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

CJ Luth of Milford, Connecticut, a contender to reach the NCAA tournament at 157 pounds, has been Del Gallo’s training partner all four years at USM.

“He knows he’s going to win the second he walks on the mat,” said Luth, who is 26-5 this season. “He has the most confidence in the world in himself and he really believes he’s the best in the country.”

Entering his senior season, Del Gallo already had established himself as one of the best ever at USM, going 21-8 as a freshman, 34-5 as a sophomore and 34-7 last season. Add in a 3.957 grade-point average and it’s easy to see why he was named USM’s 2016 Outstanding Student-Athlete of the Year.

“No matter what it is, I like to compete and do my best and see where I’m at. And wrestling, to me, is one of the ultimate forms of competition,” Del Gallo said.

As Del Gallo has gone from very good to even better, the Huskies also have improved under the direction of Morin, a Sanford native who wrestled at St. Thomas Aquinas High in Dover, New Hampshire.

“Last year we were 5-11 in dual meets and this year we’ve already won seven dual meets, and in tournaments we’ve been finishing second, fourth, second,” Morin said. “Last year we were nowhere near that. We’re going in the right direction.”

The team’s overall improvement was evident Saturday at Plymouth State. The unranked Huskies won the tournament, edging 18th-ranked New York University by a half-point.

A year ago USM placed third at the same tournament, 50 points behind NYU.

Also winning individual titles were freshman Peter Del Gallo, Daniel’s brother, at 125 pounds, and Luth. Placing second were sophomore Brendan Weir of Easthampton, Massachusetts (141), freshman Josh Smith of York (165), and sophomore Mike Risti of Limerick and Massabesic (285).

Peter Del Gallo, the Telegram’s 2016 Wrestler of the Year and a two-time New England high school champion, is 24-0 this season. He believes he can join his brother at the NCAA championships, especially if he follows his brother’s daily example.

“He gets a fire under people. Him and CJ are the hardest-working people in the room,” Peter Del Gallo said. “And when we look at CJ and Daniel working, we know that to be as good as them we have to work just as hard, if not harder.”

“This year has definitely been another step forward for the team,” Daniel Del Gallo said. “For me, I’m just staying focused on the daily goals and the weekly goals, and I think my teammates and my coaches are really going to put me over the edge. I can’t do this on my own. It takes a whole team and coaching staff to get me where I need to be.”