The Lehi wrestling team is going to open the season with a trip to the Evanston Invitational next week.

Held the first weekend of every December, the invitational is one of the oldest prep wrestling tournaments in southwestern Wyoming and draws teams from all over the Intermountain area. The Pioneers have often opened their competitive year at the event.

"It's a good opening for our season," said Lehi coach Dan Rice. "There will be a lot of good schools at that tournament.

"It will give guys a chance to wrestle opponents on the same level as them. Freshmen, for example, will be wrestling freshmen, so they don't killed by older wrestlers.

"Seniors will have to wrestle varsity in the tournament. It will be good learning experience for them."

Rice said on the weekend after the Evanston Invitational, the Pioneers will travel over to the Wasatch Duals in Heber City.

The coach added, "The Wasatch tournament is going to be pretty tough."

Rice said the purpose of participating in those first two weekend tournaments is to prepare them for Region in a hurry.

"They will figure that out real fast," the coach added.

He said Springville is expected to be the toughest wrestling team in Region 7.

"Springville is the team to beat this year," said the coach. "Payson's young, but they're pretty solid. So are Provo and Orem. Timpview is struggling this year, but they have a few guys who're pretty good."

Rich said, "One half of our guys are young. Another half are experienced wrestlers. We have back this year only one guy who wrestled at State last season: Matt Spencer. He took third in the state tournament. He and Riley Sullivan are our team captains this year."

During the past summer, Rice recalled, "I took our guys over to a wrestling camp in American Fork. That was the only time we went as a team to a camp last summer. We had guys who went as individuals to different camps during the summer break. One of our guys even went to a camp in Oklahoma."

The coach said that after the Pioneers had officially began practicing, they held a meeting in which they wrote down 10 goals they want to accomplish this year, but those goals remain a team secret.

Rice's assistants this year are Scott Nelson and Erick Duclos.