Last season, the night was Friday, Feb. 26 in the Parkway West gymnasium.The visiting Mustangs went head to head with the Parkway West Longhorns in the boys basketball district finals.

The Mustangs were fifth in the Suburban West with a 15-13 record, being 4-4 in the conference. On the other side, the Longhorns were 21-7 and 6-1 in the conference, good enough for second in their conference, the Suburban South.

The game started off at 7 p.m. and ended up with the home team coming away with the win 40-21, and the Mustangs going home taking second place at districts.

However, Shane Matzen, varsity boys basketball coach, said he is very optimistic about the upcoming season.

“As a fan, I would be very excited to watch this team play this year,” Matzen said.

MHS had seven seniors on varsity for the 2009-2010 season, but played several underclassmen as well.

“We have a lot of experience from sophomores who played on varsity and we have a good chance this year and we have some good players,” said Zach Ploeger, senior guard, the only returning senior on Coach Matzen’s varsity squad.

Ploeger said he will lead by doing his best everyday and take it from there. Ploeger said a goal of the team is to win Districts, a goal they have fell short of the last two seasons in the title game.

But that team isn’t the only team coming back this winter.

“The sky’s the limit” for his team this year”, said George Hovis, first year varsity wrestling coach, with two of their three state qualifiers from last year back, Tommy Makowsky, junior, and Matt Mosior, senior.

One matchup to watch this year for the wrestling team is against Parkway North, where Hovis coached the past four years.

“I think he’s definitely going to work us extra hard that week so we can tear them up,” Mosior said.

He also said he thought Coach Hovis would lead the team in a great direction.

Girls basketball had a losing season last year and is younger this year than last year with only three returning seniors.

“We have high expectations and a young team,” shooting guard Kelly Dunlap, sophomore, said. Dunlap made the junior varsity girls basketball team as a freshman last year.

“We’re more athletic this year, the youth of our team is going to catch teams off guard,” Dunlap said.

Lauren Morris, senior, has spent three years playing for the girls varsity basketball team.

“We have a younger team this year, we are much stronger, and if we step up and do what our coaches ask us to do, we should do well,” Morris said.

“If our youth can gel, we have a good chance of beating anyone that comes to us,” says Tim Bowdern, varsity girls basketball assistant, said.

Girls swimming and diving alsostarts off this winter season.

“I think we will do really well. We have a young team and that’s really good,” Maddie Eversole, junior swimmer, said. Of MHS’s 12 opponents, 4 of them are top 10 finishers at state. MHS will face these four teams within the first three dual swimming meets.

Eversole said the team has a lot of swimmers on the Rockwood national team and she expressed her desire to make the state cut this year as she did last year, with the 200 freestyle relay. The junior also mentioned their new coach, Joe Schoedel.

“A coaching job at Marquette is one of the most enviable coaching positions in St. Louis, with the fantastic facilities and swimmers dedicated to winning traditions,” Schoedel said.

Practice for girls swimming starts on Monday, Nov. 15.