The FHN Knights JV wrestling team is back and feeling better than ever.

With the seniors from last year gone and the new incoming freshmen, the team is younger with a good core of sophomores and juniors.

“The freshmen definitely have a good amount of potential. They’re all around the same weight which creates a problem. We definitely like high numbers but we coach what we got,” coach Chris Brown said.

Last year the team had four state qualifiers and one state medalist, Tyler Smith. According to Brown, even though they had state qualifiers the team still has to focus on hard practices and getting better. They plan on doing this is by keeping it simple and working on the basics. This would include six days a week practices.

“Wrestling is a lot of fun but it takes 110% of effort. It’s the one thing that I focus mainly on aside from school work,” sophomore Kaleb Bell said.

This year Brown hopes to get more state qualifiers and win more matches. He expects to see Junior A.J. Lozada make a big impact on the team and wants to see him shine on the mats.

Even though the team got a fresh new group of freshmen, there are still things that the team will have to overcome and work on. One thing being overcoming the problem of having too many people in the same weight division.

“Having too many people in the same weight division definitely is going to be hard to work with but I think we’ll be fine,” Bell said.

High expectations are expected from the wrestlers but with the weight division situation coach Brown is unsure how the season will play out. He only has good hopes as how the season will turn out.

“It’s hard to say what will happen. We got a lot of good individuals but we’re lacking a full line up,” Brown said.