The Fountain Hills High School wrestling team is back in season, and the team is the biggest it’s been in the past five years. According to head coach Luke Salzman, most of the new wrestlers were recruited by friends already on the team.

Salzman said that some of his athletes chose not to wrestle at all last year, but they are back this year. About half of his 26 wrestlers are veterans, and the rest are new to the sport.

“If everything goes right, we should fill 13 out of the 14 weight classes,” Salzman said. “We have a pretty solid group of juniors and seniors, which is good. We don’t have to throw any really young guys to the wolves right away.”

About 10 of the new wrestlers saw their first action last weekend at a JV tournament at Perry High School. The first varsity meet was Tuesday, Nov. 30, at Mogollon High School. The Falcons wrestled against Alchesay, Round Valley and Mogollon.

“Mogollon and Round Valley are probably the best two teams in our section,” Salzman said. “It’ll be a good challenge for us to see where we’re at. Hopefully we turn some heads and they go, ‘Wow, you guys are a lot better than in the past.’”

The Falcons are missing a lightweight wrestler in the 106 category, but they have wrestlers in every other weight class. Salzman said the competition for the varsity spot is decided by a few factors. Students must keep up their attendance, grades and health. If those factors are comparable between athletes, they will have a best of three rounds wrestle off.

Some wrestling coaches would have athletes lose or gain weight to fill other weight class positions. Salzman said that cutting weight is a decision the wrestler must make themselves, but he does ask that they eat healthy and work hard in practice.

The Falcons have been practicing and working as a team since early November, and the season goes until the second week of February. Salzman is in his 14th season as the Falcons’ head coach, and he’s learned a few tricks to increase the team’s fun and success throughout the season.

“If you just stay in this room and do wrestling moves for three months, it gets pretty stagnant,” Salzman said. “We go on a lot of hikes on the weekends. For Veterans Day, we went to the fountain and had a big game of ultimate frisbee. Team bonding is key with a group this size, when you have freshmen through seniors all together. They’re all really good kids and they all kind of look out for each other.”

Salzman also likes to instill character and discipline in his wrestlers. He has them clean up the high school campus twice a year, and the wrestlers did their first trash pickup of the year on Nov. 10.

The Falcons only lost two seniors last year, and with their strength in numbers, Salzman has a good feeling about the 2021-22 season. He said to keep an eye on juniors Ty Jablonsky in the 120-weight class, Gavin Furi in 138 and Stephen Broetsky in 144. Salzman also said to watch seniors JT Despain in 190 and Hector Leon in heavyweight.

“Our goal is always to get as many guys qualified for state and get state placers,” Salzman said. “We’ve had a good history of wrestling throughout the years. We had a state champion two years ago, and a lot of these guys can remember that hype, which was a good hype for the program.”

The Falcons have a few more meets this December. They travel to Wickenburg this weekend for an invitational on Friday and Saturday, Dec. 3-4. Then the Falcons host a meet at home next Tuesday, Dec. 7. The Falcons will host eight schools at home before their last competition of 2021, which will be another weekend invitational at San Tan Charter School on Friday, Dec. 10, and Saturday Dec. 11.