The Lakeland Hawks Wrestling team is looking to win the district tournament for the 14th year in a row. 

The Hawks have two returning state placers from last year. Matthew Williams placed fifth in the 98 lbs category and Devon Suko placed sixth in the 170 lbs category.

Payden Wysong, Lucas Williams, Reilly Saxe, and Preston Jeffs also went to the state tournament but did not place.

Roughly around 25-30 wrestlers have come out this year to wrestle for the Hawks. A large amount of that being freshman.

The Hawks are also losing head coach Rob Edelblute. Edelblute wrestled at Lakeland and won two state championships in 1988, and 1989. Edlelblute coached at Lakeland for 25 years and won multiple district titles.

The Hawks lost nine seniors last year. With John White going to wrestle at Southern Oregon University, and Soren Sabatke wrestling at North Idaho College.

The new head coach, Zach Horsely, is looking forward to this season.

“We are excited to defend our district title again this year. We are returning a handful of veteran wrestlers that are looking to make their mark in the wrestling history books,” Horsley said.

There are some key guys that are looking to make an impact this year are Payden Wysong, Lucas Williams, Mathew Williams, Devon Suko, and Preston Jeffs. All these wrestlers went to state last year and are looking to place and hopefully win state this year.

The Hawks finished last year with an 8-3 record in the duals.

Junior Mathew Williams is also looking forward to this season after placing fifth last year. 

“I think it’ll be good, hopefully,” Williams stated.

And with Eledblute out as head coach, Williams doesn’t think that’ll change anything. 

The Hawks have practices every day after school from 2:45 to 4:45. The first dual is December 1st and it is the Green vs Gold.