Area wrestling gets under way on Saturday when Logansport hosts its annual Early Bird Invitational.

The following is an early look at the area teams, in order of their finish at last year’s Twin Lakes Sectional.

Winamac

Chad Compton takes the reins of the program from Hall of Fame coach Steve Van Der Aa, who retired from coaching following last season.

“There are big shoes to fill, that’s for sure,” Compton said. “He taught me how to coach, so there will be a lot of similarities, but there will be a lot of personal things also.”

Compton has been an assistant coach of the program for four years total, including in each of the last two seasons. He’s a 1993 Winamac grad and finished fourth in his weight class at state his senior year.

Returnees for the Warriors, who finished runner-up in last year’s sectional, include seniors Bryce Hoover (152), Quentin Chapman (140), Shawn Mickey (135) and Nick Fritz (119), juniors Zach Dix (heavyweight) and Robert Hartley (125) and sophomore Garrett Chapman (130).

“All of the returning wrestlers we have back will be real exciting to watch,” Compton said. “We hope to have a good season for at least five or six kids and hope to build on the rest.

“The rest of them are real young. We’ve got some up-and-comers, but not a lot of numbers.”

Logansport

The Berries once again have good numbers, with 45 boys out for the team. But only seven are returning starters.

“We have a lot of young kids that are going to need to step up and make a name for themselves,” Logan coach Frank Patacsil said. “I think it’s gonna be a lot like last year where we start out pretty slow from what we would like to be, and if the kids develop like I hope they can, then by the end of the year we’ll be fairly competitive.

“We’ve got a lot of inexperience. We’ll have a couple freshmen probably in the varsity lineup, and as they mature throughout the year, they’ll probably have to uphold and score some points for us.”

The Berries do have three returning semistate qualifiers in seniors Kegan Clark and Ulises Contreras and sophomore Brandon Preston.

“Regional champ Brandon Preston is going to wrestle 112 for us. Our heavyweight was third at the regional last year, Kegan Clark, and a semistate qualifier. He’s back. … Ulises Contreras was a sectional champ last year and went to the semistate for us, he’ll be wrestling probably 135, 130,” Patacsil said.

“Kegan Clark and Brandon Preston went to a camp over the summer. They’ve been living wrestling, Kegan since football and Preston’s been working out earlier this year. I really think if they continue to improve like they did last year, they’ll be in position at the end of the year to have a pretty good run in the state tournament.”

As for other spots on the team, Patacsil said: “At 215 we feel we have a pretty good kid, John Lawrence. At 189, we’ve got a couple kids fighting for that spot, but I think Derrick McQuiston will wrestle and he’s looked real good. At 171, I’m not really sure, but the kid we put out there is going to be pretty competitive. We’ve got two or three kids that are fighting for that spot. I think right now Dalton Christensen would probably be in that position.

“Fernando Gomez is a two-year starter for us. He’ll be at 145. Adam Cotner is a returning varsity kid will be probably 145, 152, somewhere in there. Chris Espinoza did a good job for us last year, will be at 140, 145.”

Patacsil hopes his young squad will peak at the end of the season for the North Central Conference and IHSAA Tournament meets.

“I really think if our kids work hard, we’ll be right in the mix at the end of the year,” he said.

Pioneer

The Panthers have a new coach this season in Chuck LaDow, who’s a veteran to the state wrestling scene. LaDow takes over for Tim Spray, who won two sectional titles and five Midwest Conference titles in his nine years at the helm before he moved to Wisconsin with his family earlier this year.

LaDow was the head coach at Logansport in 2004. He was also an assistant coach there for 10 years. He also coached Logan’s cross country team for 10 years and was the middle school cross country coach the past four years.

“I’ve been a wrestler all my life, so it’s nice to be back on the mat and to share my love for the sport,” LaDow said. “I was working out at the Y and saw Owen Dorris, and he told me they were looking for a coach and I told him I’d like to get back into it. … I’ve wrestled for 35 years and have officiated for 23 years. I thought I’d give it a shot for a year. And then, here I am — a Pioneer Panther.”

LaDow expects the Panthers to be strong this season.

“They were a young team last year and they won more than they lost,” he said. “We bring back a lot of kids with talent. We have a state qualifier back in Owen Dorris, a semistate qualifier back in Justin Johnson, and a kid who did a lot over the summer to improve in Nathan Nethercutt.

“Half of the lineup has a lot of experience and the other half is fairly young. We have 14 kids out that should fill the 14 classes, which is an amazing anomaly when that happens. I think we should be a pretty solid dual team and a really solid tournament team with kids winning championships in the tournaments.”

Dorris (140 pound weight class) and Nethercutt (171) are juniors, and Johnson (112) is a sophomore. Other returning wrestlers include juniors Aaron Wagner (145), Tony Baxter (152) and Philip Whitlock (189).

“We’ve talked about wanting to win the MWC, and we want to be in contention for the sectional and regional titles,” LaDow said.

Cass

Cass coach Nate Burrous is expecting a big improvement from last year’s squad that went 12-12.

“We’re looking pretty good,” Burrous said. “We’ve got strong leadership from our seniors and a lot of guys who wrestled in the offseason.”

As for his squad’s goals, Burrous stated: “We’d like to win the sectional. I think we can win the sectional. We’d like to send four or five to the semistate and at least a couple to state. We’d like to place in the top three in the [Mid-Indiana Conference]. … We’d like to win 20 dual meets.”

The Kings lost just one senior to graduation from a year ago in Brady Tolle, who was a semistate qualifier.

Burrous talked about his roster for this time around.

“We have Derrick Worden at 160. Last year he advanced to the semistate and was a sectional champion. Jake Reed at 112, was one win short of the semistate and we expect him to get there this year. Brennan Popp’s a junior and this will be his second year of varsity. Levi Byers wrestled heavyweight last year, but only weighed 200 pounds. He still went 19-14. This year he’s a full-sized heavyweight.

“We have a senior, Nik Jones, at 215. At 145 we have another senior in Austin Moorman, and this will be his third year of varsity. At 119 we have a freshman, Garrett Riley, who has wrestled for years and years and started when he was about 4. He ought to be pretty good.

“At 145 we have Cody McGehee, who wrestled varsity last year as a freshman. At 171 is Matt Lane, a junior who is a third-year varsity wrestler. At 189 is Jack Farnham, a junior who’s a second-year varsity wrestler. And we have a few brand new freshmen to the team. Blake Cain, Tanner Garland, Sheldon Slusser, Johnny Griffith and Nick McGinnis could fill in varsity spots for us.”

Caston

The Comets enter the season knowing they’ll have to forfeit the two highest weight classes, but coach Dave Redweik likes the wrestlers he has in the remaining spots.

“It’s promising,” he said. “We’ve got some kids I think can do pretty good. We’ve got a good nucleus back, I just wish we had some upper weights.

“As of right now, we’ll maybe have to forfeit two weight classes — probably 215 and heavyweight.”

Among the returnees for Caston is Wil Holloway, a sectional champion from a year ago.

“Wil Holloway is at 130, I expect him to do pretty good,” Redweik said. “Austin Ault is trying to get to 152. He’s a senior who should be good. David McMenamin is at 145. We’ve got a couple good sophomores in Graham Redweik, my son, and Blain Hizer. Dylan Berkshire is a transfer from Winamac who’s a senior. He’s trying to get to 119.

“Our lightweights should be pretty good.”

Dave Redweik is looking for his squad to improve on its 7-24 record of a year ago.

“We want to be competitive in a lot more of the dual meets,” he said. “The kids will be striving for a better team record. I’d like to get a few of them to semistate. It’d be nice to get someone to state, we’ll see how that goes.”