You can say Northampton’s wrestling team was excited about opening the season last night at Emmaus.

Excited might be an understatement for the Kids, who didn’t wrestle in any opening tournaments over the weekend and kicked off their highly anticipated 2016-17 campaign against the Green Hornets, a result which was past Press deadlines.

However, now that the season has begun, the Kids jump right into a major test this weekend with the Beast of the East tournament in Delaware.

“The Beast is a fun weekend with competitive wrestling for everyone,” said head coach Seth Lisa. “All of our wrestlers need to score points for the team and we should be alright. There is a lot energy in our program right now. Our expectation is to always improve. We wrestle in a very tough division and we hope to compete.”

The Kids are obviously loaded down below with the likes of returning state champion Julian Chlebove (So., 120/126), along side Dan Moran (126/132) and KJ Fenstermacher (132/138).

Logan Ninos (Jr., 113/120), Michael Kistler (So., 138/145) and Devon Britton (So., 138/145) round out their strong lineup below to go along with the talented Cade Moisey (Sr., 170/182), but from there Chance Wandler (Jr., 152) and Zach Rooks (Sr., 160) provide additional varsity experience.

The question marks remain in other middle and upper weights.

“We have five or six guys in our lineup with little or no high school experience,” Lisa said. “These guys have been working hard and they need to show some fight when they compete.

“I think having a good start gets you in a positive mindset but ultimately the goal is to be good at the end of the year.”

Northampton was a clear favorite to knock off Emmaus on Wednesday, but the Kids should also improve from last year’s 23rd place finish at the Beast.

A year ago, Chlebove and Moran were the only Kids to medal at the national event, as Chlebove took seventh and Moran came in fourth.

Both will obviously look to improve upon that, especially Chlebove, who took off after last season’s Beast performance en route to a state championship.

“We have a core group of wrestlers that have experienced a lot of individual success,” said Lisa. “Their mentality is to win every time they step on the mat. I’m hoping that attitude spreads through the rest of the lineup.”