This year’s Bainbridge High varsity wrestling team has a whole new look to go with its fresh faces.

The team boasts just one senior and is made up of primarily newcomers to the sport. And a new Washington Interscholastic Activities Association regulation now gives wrestlers a choice of uniform when they step onto the mat: the iconic one-piece singlet or a two-piece outfit of close-fitting “fight shorts and a short-sleeved compression top.”

It was the new uniform flexibility (some students always were uncomfortable wearing the singlet), the island squad’s continued successful streak at state last year (senior Aaron Jumpa claimed a seventh-place finish) and general word of mouth around campus, Spartan Head Coach Dan Pippinger said, that resulted in the much-improved number of students at tryouts this season.

Sixteen scrappy Spartans made the final roster.

Led by the sole senior, team captain Hague Bush — last year’s co-captain who went to State and was bested in the first round of the consolation bracket — the 2016-17 squad consists of: juniors Koa Goff, Nathanael Michaels, Fernando Soria Molina, Emerson Van Dyk and Clay Wren; sophomores Roberto Allen Felts Blackmon, Rachel Longridge (the only other returner to have made an appearance at state last year), Oleg Maguire, Brian Mckinnon, Noah Osborn, Douglas Schelbert and Sterling Watnem; and freshmen Pedro Delfino, Clayton Marsh, Michael McCoskery and Cameron Williams II.

“We’re pretty green,” Pippinger said. “[There’s] not a lot of experience in the room.”

The initial weeks of training had been “pretty stressful,” the coach said, as he struggled to imprint on the young grapplers proper form and basic skills, while also preparing them for their first outings on the mat.

“Some of these guys don’t have any experience,” he explained. “I’m just trying to be like: ‘How do I get the kids to understand the level of intensity or what you need to be able to be successful?’

“It’s hard to explain that when you’re also going against somebody else in the room that doesn’t have that level,” he said. “They can’t push each other to a different level because they don’t know it exists.”

Still, stress aside, Pippinger, longtime leader of the BHS program, said he was thrilled to see so many new faces.

“It’s good that kids are coming out and getting the opportunity and seeing what it’s about,” he said.

In light of the squad’s inexperience, Pippinger altered the early season training schedule to include less actual grappling and much more demonstration, skill drills and overall conditioning. It’s difficult, he said, “just getting kids to have the right kind of habits.”

“There’s so many things they do instinctually that are not right,” Pippinger explained. “You have to break the instinct to do the things that you want to do, but get you in trouble.”

Even though the roster is on the younger side, this year’s island squad boasts a surprisingly even distribution of wrestlers among the many weight classes.

“I have almost a full lineup,” Pippinger said. “It’s great. We don’t have a lot of second-level guys, but we got most of the weight classes filled out.”

Team captain Bush, 182-pounds, certainly looks the part of a senior wrestler, with a lean, muscled build and a straight military carriage, prone to quick, precise movements. But he does not always sound the part. He’s buttoned up, Pippinger said. Serious. A good role model, if a bit of an enigma.

“He’s got an on and off button,” the coach said of the senior Spartan. “If he’s on, he’s a bull. He goes hard or he’s not here.

“He’s quiet,” Pippinger added. “He’s a good student, and really works hard when he’s here and focused in on doing things the right way.”

Bush only joined the team as a sophomore himself, and is currently working on his application to the United States Military Academy.

The look of the league remains much the same as last year, according to the coach, and he expects great showings from the usual powerhouses.

“I don’t think the league has changed that much,” he said. “O’Dea’s going to have the numbers and they’ll be pretty good. We’ll see how it shakes out from there.”

The Spartans will not wrestle at home until Tuesday, Jan. 3, when they host Ingraham and Kingston for a dual match. Now, the team will travel to compete in the two-day Hammerhead Invitational at Olympic High School Friday, Dec. 16 and Saturday, Dec. 17 before enjoying a short break through the holiday.