In the case of this year’s wrestling team, weight does matter.

Unlike the past few years, the Wolverines have members in every weight class, an aus­picious sign for their success in the next few months.

“In tournaments, even if five guys on your team win your weight class, the team will do very poorly if you don’t have every weight,” three-year veteran Alex Lange ’14 said. “Having every weight really boosts your team’s per­formance. All the points you get from each weight class add up.”

That, and the Wolverines’ improved turnout at its three days a week summer practic­es, should help the Wolverines improve on their 1-4 overall and 0-4 league record from last season.

“We had a really good off­season training program and a lot of the kids are developing and it will be really exciting this year,” Head Coach Gary Bairos said. “We have a good young group. We had a really intense offseason training. A lot of the kids went to really good camps.”

Likewise, Lange said, the fact that wrestlers are no longer concentrated in a few weight classes will allow team members to get more playing time.

“Everyone’s going to im­prove because everyone’s go­ing to get more experience,” Lange said. “Last year we had five guys all in this one weight class. I was an underclassman, so I didn’t get a lot of match­es.”

“I’m expecting us to do pretty well in league,” team member Jake Bracken ’14 said. “We’re a young team, but it seems like we’re always a young team, so we’re going to be fine. We’ll do well in tour­naments, because we always do well in tournaments. We’re expecting to do a lot better than we did last year.”

The team will look to its leaders in both age and weight class to carry out that expec­tation.

“I think our senior heavy­weights, Charlie Nelson [’13] and Henry Schlossberg [’13], are hopefully going to carry the team through the year,” Lange said.

“Our leaders are going to be Nelson, Schlossberg, Brack­en and [James] Wauer [’13],” Bairos said.

As for key matches, the team will look to avenge its winless 2011-2012 season in League competition during the November to January regular season before the early Febru­ary CIF tournament. At CIF, Lange said, the team aims to place in the top 20 amongst the 50 or so teams at the tour­nament.

“I have high hopes for the team this year,” Bairos said.