There have been a lot of changes in the Pleasant Valley wrestling program over the last few years.

Nazareth native Ross Nunamaker took over the job a month ago, and is getting his Bears team ready for the 2022-23 season.

“These kids are really resilient when you go through multiple coaching changes,” Nunamaker said. “Obviously, my father coached Nazareth for 34 years. My brother was at Parkland for I think 15 years. These kids have gone through three coaches in three years, the juniors and seniors. Nazareth’s had three coaches since the mid-60s. The stability, all of those types of things, the way practices are conducted, it’s all different. We’re doing it on a very late pace of me coming on board and bringing the staff.”

Nunamaker is part of a wrestling family where his father Ray led the Nazareth program for over three decades. Sports is a mainstay in the Nunamaker family, and Pleasant Valley will undergo its third wrestling head coach in three seasons.

“We’re putting things together on the fly,” Nunamaker said. “We’re all just working as hard as we can to get the very fundamental things put together so we can get the season kicked off. That’s hard on the kids because they don’t deserve that, but it’s what we’re dealing with. We’re making it work.”

Seniors Manny Rivera and Eddie Lauritsen are leading the way for the Bears. PV is still trying to figure out where to place wrestlers in certain weight classes. Lauritsen is a three-time letter winner, while junior Jason Schubert is also a letter winner.

Nevertheless, the real test will come at the season opener in the Patriot Invitational on Dec, 3 at Freedom.

“In terms of wrestling, I coached youth league for a few years,” Nunamaker said. “I coached tennis for a few years. I was the athletic director at Nazareth for a couple of years. This was something that just kind of came up between some high school teammates of mine, and they said let’s see if we can do this, and we all agreed we’re going to try to make it work.”

Senior James Barruzza is coming off his final football season with the Bears, and is expected to start in the 285 class. The team had a turnout of 25 kids, right where Nunamaker expected it to be.

“We got a lot of kids,” Nunamaker said. “My goal was to have 25-26 kids on the roster, and right now we have about 25. The numbers are good for the high school. “I don’t know what to say too much about too many. There’s going to be more guys that are probably going in there, but I don’t want to take anything away from the freshmen and sophomores. We’re freshmen and sophomore heavy; we have more freshman and sophomores than juniors and seniors.”

PV will have a tough schedule to contest for the 2022-23 season. The Bears must endure a five-meet stretch facing top-state teams Bethlehem Catholic and Nazareth, followed by Parkland and Emmaus to close out the regular season.

The first home meet of the year will be against Whitehall on Dec. 7. Nunamaker is confident his team will be competitive for the 2022-23 season.

“The baseline is we want to get better than what was done last year,” Nunamaker said. “We finished 10th last year. The beginning part of the season, we have a decent number of schools that we’ll be very competitive with. The scheduling gods didn’t do us really well in the second half; we got away at Bethlehem Catholic and Nazareth, so one and two ranked in the state, back-to-back weeks. Parkland’s always tough, and then Emmaus. Those are four of our last five dual meets, so that’s going to be a tough stretch for the kids.”

“I think they can be competitive, and if we can get the right kids in the right way, they’re going to be strong. I see them buying into what we’re showing them. I have a staff once I get the couple added in, we have a really strong staff, and I’m really confident we have the best wrestlers.”