3A-13 Preview: Can Douglas hold off pursing teams to win fifth straight?

Notable losses (Graduation/Transfer): David Leiva, 48-1, 3rd, RC, DC; Rocco Duygulu, 48-6, 7th, R3, DC; Jackson Zajkowski, 41-15, SQ, R4, D2; Lucas Sigueira, 27-10, RQ, D2; Jeremy Lopez, 22-13, RQ, D3; James Messmer, 29-6, RQ, DC.

Notable returning wrestlers: Bryce Siddens, Sr., 36-13, RQ-BR, D2; Jacob Balk, Jr., 44-11, RQ-BR, D2; Keegan Lake, Jr., 40-9, RQ, DC; Joshua Lopez, So., 26-17, RQ, D2; Santiago Caro, So., 20-10, RQ, D3; Aaron Porudominsky, Sr., 17-14, RQ, D3.

New wrestler: Javi Leiva

What they are saying: “I'm not saying we're not going to do well as a team, but it's definitely much younger team than we had in the past year or two. We have some wrestlers on this year's team with experience and I know they're going to take over that leadership role and rally the team. We're going to be a little bit young, but I think when the time comes, for the end of the season that they're all going to pull together.”

On adding Herl to coaching staff: “I am excited to add John Herl to our coaching staff. This will be my last year as the head coach as I look forward to handing coach Herl the program next season as I will take a step back to be the assistant. I will still have my long time assistant Coach Dan Sanchez. I know by adding Coach Herl, it will help Douglas wrestling reach even greater heights, to what Coach Sanchez and I built the last 7 years. Coach Herl has trained a lot of our kids in the off season at American Top Team.”

On last year's senior class: "It kind of started four years back where the juniors and seniors from few years back were in a similar situation, they were good quality kids and they really set the tone for the next group and luckily we were fortunate enough that we had guys like Rocco, David and so forth that took what those seniors instilled into them and carried it their four years. Everybody just bought into it and I've seen teams that, you have good quality wrestlers, but as a team, they could slowly by junior senior year just start falling apart. But this group, they all came together when they started as ninth graders in last year's group they just all stuck it out together. Rocco and David are the two big names, but overall, it was huge as a program that nobody quit on each other, they saw it through as a unit."

On being in region 3A-4: "We're going to open up at H-Town just so they can see some of that Miami competition. We're doing a couple of small dual meet tournaments in Miami this year too. I'm not sure if it's that level, the 3A-4, but we just want them to start seeing a little bit more different kind of competition down there and hopefully that helps. Would I love to send a huge team of states out of boys? Of course, but we have four guys who all have a good shot to qualify and the good thing is they've all been in that region. They've wrestled in that region. They know what to expect in that region. So it's going to be on them to make that run."

Outlook: Douglas will look to replace not just a big group of seniors, but the leadership of David and Rocco too. The Eagles will be looking for their young wrestlers to grow up quickly as they chase their fifth-straight district title.