The first day of preseason practices and tryouts for high school winter sports teams opened inside of heated buildings away from the cold on Monday, with plenty of enthusiasm for the upcoming year.

Lawrence High’s boys basketball team is expected to be one of the top teams in the state, returning seven players from last year’s varsity rotation that had a 17-5 record.

“I feel like with the older guys, we’re in a good spot,” LHS coach Mike Lewis said. “There are some younger guys here that we don’t know too much about. We’ll have to get in and see what they’re about and see how they may or may not fit in. But it’s nice to come back and have a group of boys who know the process.”

About 70 boys are trying out for all levels of the LHS boys basketball program, and that will be cut to around 40 by tonight.

Free State High’s boys basketball team had a high number of players at tryouts, but they are also missing several players who are on the football team, which has a state semifinal game on Friday. They’ll have a separate tryout after their football season ends.

“It’s something that we’re accustomed to here at Free State because it happens a lot,” FSHS coach Chuck Law said. “It’s a difficult situation, and it’s a healthy situation because we all want the football team to do well, but certainly makes this process a little more challenging for us.”

Girls basketball

Free State’s girls basketball team saw a few of its returning varsity players miss time in the summer because of injuries. Now all of them are back.

“Several of our players, we need to wait and see what they can do,” FSHS coach Bryan Duncan said. “We’re actually a little bit further behind than we like to be, but it’s a good problem because we have kids back from injuries, and we picked up some (newcomers) that we like.”

Both FSHS and Lawrence had around 40 girls at tryouts, so there won’t be too many cuts from either school. Lawrence also isn’t as far along as it would like to be before games start in the next few weeks.

“We just have a lot of work to do,” first-year LHS coach Jeff Dickson said. “With the transition, I’ve got pretty high expectations, and I think the kids can do more to rise to the occasion. We’ve had individuals that have really done a great job and done that, but as a group, I feel like there’s a lot more kids who need to pick it up a little bit.”

Boys swimming

With soccer players encouraging their teammates to join the swimming team and other new swimmers, there’s a small increase to about 30 swimmers and four divers for Lawrence’s boys swimming and diving team.

“We got some young guys that are good swimmers, and they’re going to put pressure on the guys who were here last year, which is good,” LHS coach Kent McDonald said. “I’m going to hurt them today, though. A lot of them haven’t swam in a while, so it’ll be tough.”

Free State’s boys swim team only added two freshmen this year, but there are several new swimmers and divers from the sophomore and junior age groups.

“What’s nice is that some of these guys have already been swimming,” FSHS coach Annette McDonald said. “They swim club. They bring some talent with them from last year. They have great leadership, so that’s really nice, too.”

Wrestling

Free State’s wrestling team ended last year with around 28 wrestlers, but will start this season with 48. Most of the newcomers are sophomores and juniors who have wrestled in the past.

“We’re way up. Our (wrestling) room is way too small for the kids we have,” FSHS coach Mike Gillman. “We got a lot of young kids. We only have, like, four seniors on the team.”

Lawrence’s wrestling team had about 31 kids show up on the first day, about 10 to 15 less than it started with last year, though that number could rise after basketball cuts.

“We’re about 90 percent freshman and sophomore,” LHS coach Pat Naughton said. “The thing about it is they have experience. Most of these kids have wrestled in club or at the junior high, so they have the experience. But the thing is, they haven’t wrestled in high school yet. We have to bring them along slowly so they don’t get burnt out and take a beating.”