Park head coach Jim LaBrosse is bullish on this season, and why not.

The Wolfpack return almost their entire starting lineup from a year ago, minus only Zach Silvis at 120 and Dom Atkins at 170.

Silvis (42-2 overall last season), of course, had a standout career at Park, finishing as the school’s career and season near-fall records and season pin records. He was the Minnesota state runner- up finish at 120 pounds last season, a four-time sectional champion, four-time all-conference, sixth at state at 106 as a sophomore and third at state at 120 as a junior. He’s now taking a redshirt year at North Dakota State.

Leading the Park returnees are four returning state entrants, ninth grader Zach Carr (35-10) at 120 pounds, sophomore Gunnar Mullen (39-11) at 145, senior Will Deutsch (21-22) at 152 and senior Alex Carr (31-21) at 195. Zach Carr, Mullen and Deutsch will all be moving up a weight class or two.

Alex Carr is ranked fifth at 182 pounds and Mullen is ranked sixth at 152 pounds in Class AAA by The Guillotine.

“My goals are to place at state, top six, and then my goals for the team are to be a leader,” said Mullen who enters the season with 99 career wins,” said Mullen, who will be going for his 100th win Thursday.

For team events, Alex Carr will likely wrestle at 195, but will likely cut to 182 come tournament time.

“I’m very comfortable at both and I think I can compete at both,” said Carr. “Obviously I want to make it to state. That’s the No. 1 goal. But I want to provide to my team as much as I can at either 1982 or 195.”

“It’s going to be a fun year with those four returning state guys,” said head coach Jim LaBrosse, now in his 19th or 20th season as the head Park wrestling coach.

Besides those four returning state qualifiers, Park’s lineup is filled with a lineup of experienced wrestlers, including sophomore Kyler Jubinal, senior JJ Bachtle back after being injured last season — sophomore Joey Chilton, senior Donovan Early- Pinder, junior Sam Lankow and senior heavyweight Doug Sabin. Another veteran, sophomore LeRoy Olson, is currently injured.

“It’s tough to lose Silvis,” said Alex Carr. “But honestly, we were such a young team (last year) and all of us are getting older and we’re all maturing. So even though its tough to loss Zach like that I think we will still be a very good team. Definitely lean and mean.”

Park’s five seniors will serve as captains. The Wolfpack will be an interesting mix of experienced and inexperienced varsity wrestlers and will be looking to improve on last year’ dual-meet record and possibly sending more wrestlers to state.

“Last year we surprised some people,” said LaBrosse. “It was such a tough year with Covid the year before. “We were still inexperienced. I think we caught some teams off guard last year. That won’t happen this year, so we need to be a little bit more prepared. We didn’t have a lor of numbers, but they were there every day and those are the kids the nucleus we’ve got back, pushing all other new kids, too. We’ve got about eight or nine new faces this year.”

Park was 12-12 in dual meets last season but gained steam as the year went on and finished as the section runner- up in the team race. The Wolfpack went 5-4 in Suburban East Conference duals.

“I’m really proud of our guys,” said Deutsch, who will open at 152. “We have basically our entire team back this year. “We have a lot of guys back and we have at least 10 new guys on the team. We’re looking really good for the future and for right now. I’m just really excited for the season.”

Deutsch rate of improvement is something other wrestlers in the room can aspire to. Two seasons ago, Deutsch was on the JV. Last year he made it to state.

“I’m hoping this year I go even farther,”: Deutsch said. “I want to make state again. I want to see what I can do.”

Park opens the season with a triangular meet against White Bear Lake and Cretin- Derham Hall at White Bear Lake Thursday, Dec. 1. The Wolfpack’s first home match is Saturday, Dec. 10 in a nine-team invitational. As usual, the competition will be challenging. Stillwater is ranked third in Class AAA entering the season, Mounds View seventh and Forest Lake ninth. Section bullies Hastings is ranked second in Class AAA.

PARK VARSITY LINEUP 106 – Seventh grader Bryce Dragich 113 – Seventh grader Landon Brooks 120 – Ninth grader Zach Carr 126 – Senior captain JJ Bachtle 132 – Sophomore Kyler Jubinal 138 – Sophomore Joey Chilton 145 – Sophomore Gunnar Mullen 152 – Senior captain Will Deutsch 160 – Senior captain Donovan Early-Pinder 170 – Junior Sam Lankow 182 – Junior Taiwo Fiyin 195 – Senior captain Alex Carr 220 – Junior Taryn Blasy 285 – Senior captain Doug Sabin

Park ninth grade wrestler Zach Carr moves from 106 to 120 this season. Photo by John Molene