At 13-8 last season, the Emmaus High School wrestling team had a strong season. But more importantly, the Hornets laid the groundwork for things to come. This season, Emmaus welcomes a freshman class that will provide the team with more depth than coach Jeff Arbushites has seen in his time as the coach of the Hornets.

"It's kind of a unique situation this year, because I'll have four seniors, three juniors, two sophomores and five freshmen to send out there and they're all strong wrestlers," said Arbushites. "Usually you have a couple kids who you kind of worry about, but while our young kids can all get better, they're all definitely ready to be on the varsity roster."

The program is benefitting from having six freshmen who join the roster and were all involved in states with the junior high team last season. Having that many young wrestlers who are already fairly accomplished to add to a strong core has Arbushites looking forward to what could be a big season for his team.

"I don't want to get too excited or get ahead of myself, but we've got a great group of seniors that are motivated and are providing a lot of leadership and that has our freshmen ahead of where they would normally be," said Arbushites, who is entering his 11th season as the Hornets' coach. "The young kids are really picking up from the leadership of our seniors. I believe we can be more of a force both with some of our individuals and as a team in districts."

The four seniors - Taylor Schaf, Mac Lawrence, Mike Montgomery and David Bucha - will handle most of the upper weight classes, with underclassmen handling the lower weights. Junior Tom Alcaro will wrestle between the 180 and 220 weight classes after a 25-8 season last year and sophomore Lucas Schaf, who had a big first season, going 27-9 and finishing sixth at districts, will wrestle between 113 and 120 pounds.

"Lucas is an awesome kid to coach. He should be able to avoid that sophomore slump and he'll be good again this year," said Arbushites.

The big name figures to be junior Cole Franklin, who qualified for states and took third at the Northeast Regionals and fifth in districts last season with a 31-14 record.

"Cole has always had big-move potential and he's putting it all together now and it's going to be fun to see just how much better he'll be this year even over what he accomplished last year," said Arbushites.

All of the talent on the roster gives Arbushites hopes of breaking into the big three programs - Bethlehem Catholic, Parkland and Easton - in the Lehigh Valley Conference. He knows his team can compete with the second-tier teams like Liberty, Nazareth, Northampton, Freedom and even Whitehall, who Arbushites believes is going to also have a good year.

"There's a lot of talent around the LVC," said Arbushites. "Of course, everybody looks to break into those big three and you could start to see some teams challenge them a little."

The season opens Saturday with the Saucon Valley Invitational that will have Emmaus going against teams from not only host Saucon Valley, but Exeter, Pennsbury, Phoenixville, Pleasant Valley, Scranton and Wyoming Area high schools. Emmaus has road meets at Freedom and Easton followed by a trip to Reno, Nevada to take part in a tournament there on December 20 and 21. The team won't have a home meet until January 2, when it faces Northampton.