The Parkland wrestling team was a match away from a District 11 championship last season.

The Trojans as a team lost to Easton 38-20 in the district final, but this year, they are returning some quality wrestlers that performed at a very high level in the postseason and are hungry to achieve district glory.

"Our guys are pretty self-motivated," said head coach Ryan Nunamaker. "We have a lot of returning guys back with a good amount of experience, and had some success last year. We just want to keep them fresh and keep them hungry to try and hopefully accomplish more in the postseason this year."

Juniors Ethan Lizak, Josh Ortman, Naze Haddad, and seniors Michael Marano and Shaun Heist all advanced to late rounds in the District 11 tournament last year, and some qualified for the state tournament.

"We have four guys that were state qualifiers that are back," said Nunamaker. "We're looking to return those guys to the state tournament, and hopefully throughout the year develop a few others.

"We view our season in two parts; we have an early push in the beginning of the year where we're at the King of the Mountain Tournament, and then later we're at the Power Eight Tournament. We're going to try and peak early for those tournaments, and then peak again for the district tournament and the regionals for the individuals."

Lizak (106) and Haddad (170) both won districts, and Lizak also won his weight class at the state tournament.

Nunamaker is looking to Lizak, Heist, Marano, Grady Millick and Ian Evans as leaders for this group. Evans, Marano and Millick are three-year starters for the Trojans.

"Those seniors have been around a lot of successful programs," said Nunamaker. "They were our first ever district championship team, our first ever regional championship team and a state finalist team. They know what it takes to get to where they want to be at the end of the year. We have a lot of good leadership in our program."

Nathan Christman, Billy Hoh, Tom Yankanich and Omar Haddad are returning starters for the Trojans.

The Trojans graduated Bryson Berard, Ryan Irwin, Joey Stephens and Rich Trotta.

Parkland will begin its season at the King of the Mountain Tournament the weekend of December 14-15 at Central Mountain High School.