Northampton hopes it can keep cranking out district champions on these annual February Saturday nights, and the Kids will get that opportunity this weekend when the District 11 3A wrestling tournament kicks off at Liberty's Memorial Gymnasium.

Northampton advanced five wrestlers to regionals a year ago and head coach Seth Lisa is looking toward that same number this weekend as the postseason gets under way.

"This year we want to improve on that," said Lisa about moving more wrestlers to regionals. "Its always exciting heading into the postseason and you have to forget about any successes or failures during the regular season."

Michael Scheetz (106), Todd Hetrick (113), Zach Valley (120), Paul Hetrick (126), Bobby Fehr (160) and Imad Azar (220) are Northampton's favored wrestlers to move on to the next round of wrestling.

Scheetz finds himself in a bracket dominated by freshmen, led by Parkland's Jacob Lizak. With Scheetz being a sophomore and most of the entrants at the weight being freshmen, he could have an advantage.

Todd Hetrick will have a more difficult road as he looks up to the likes of returning state champion Ethan Lizak (Parkland), as well as Nazareth's Tyrone Klump and Pleasant Valley's Kenny Yanovich.

Valley may be the Kids best bet at getting a shot at the district title, as he enters as the clear cut favorite in his weight class.

Bobby Fehr will have to knock off the likes of either Whitehall's Matt Bonshak or Easton's top-seed Evan DiSora in order to move on to the finals, while Paul Hetrick and Azar will need to battle through their weights to advance to regionals.

"They all got good seeds," said Lisa of the aforementioned wrestlers. "Zach Valley and Bobby Fehr are our most experienced wrestlers. They both have very good opponents in their weights but if they wrestle hard, good things will happen."

Lisa now hopes that everything the team endured during the regular season can pay off in the end.

"It's always exciting heading into the postseason," he said. "They need to take one match at a time and stay focused."

Wrestling kicks off at 4 p.m. Friday and quarterfinals are slated for 7 p.m. Semifinals will get under way on Saturday at 10:30 p.m. with consolation finals set for 5 p.m. Finals, which will include both 3A and 2A finalists on two mats, will kick off at 7:15 p.m.