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Last season's Genesee Area Conference champions, the Martians decided to make this regular season even more of a challenge. In addition to their conference schedule, the Martians added non-conference games against Grand Blanc and defending Division III state champs Birmingham Detroit Country Day, amongst others.

Goodrich opens the season against Country Day and Martian head coach Evan Huizenga believes the game has motivated his team all summer.

"Yeah, I think it has helped them work more. I know some guys have gotten into the weight room more than they have in the past and I think guys are training on their own more so than they have in the past or maybe different players," he said. "I know players that ask me 'what can I do more in the off-season?' or 'what can I do more?' and that was different than the past couple years, it just seemed like their taking the initiative as individuals to do more to benefit the team as a whole."

Huizenga said he has been reminding his team of their opening game with the Yellow Jackets all summer. Despite the tough out of conference play, he thinks the early competition will help his team.

"Starting off with Country Day is definitely something that drives everybody. That's everybody's measuring stick at this point because they won it last year," he said. "So to me the first game is definitely something that's going to drive us and something I can use in practice everyday until we see that game, say 'you know that's going to be one of the toughest games all year, and we're starting with it,' so hopefully it turns to be a positive thing for us, that we can compete with them right off the get go."

Yet Huizenga admits with such a tough schedule, the key to the season may lie in his team's ability to bounce back from tough losses.

"The biggest challenge will be being able to take the positives if there are any tough losses that we might take because it is a tough schedule. If we start to loose a few games, you know sometimes that makes your emotional level or your frame of mind; your mental game go down a little bit," he said. "We just have to be able to take the positives out of games, even if we do have some losses. It's not an easy schedule, so they all just have to understand that from the beginning. I think that's going to be hard to overcome if it does turn for the worse that would be tough."

Still, if there's a team in the GAC that can handle tough breaks it's probably Goodrich. With 17 returning players, Huizenga's team is not only mature enough to handle any such occurrences, but according to Huizenga, is entering the season even hungrier for a state title than last season.

"They really got a taste of what it feels like to win, because we won a district (last year). We won a real tough game against Powers last year, we won our first game in the regionals, went to the regional final," Huizenga said. "They realize that it takes a little bit more work and a little bit more effort to get to the next stage, which would have been states.

"They almost had a taste of it and we're going to work them really hard to get to that point again and get beyond where they were. We graduated five seniors that were definitely contributors to our team, but we had 22 players on the varsity roster last year, so graduating five that still leaves a lot of talent and a lot of potential."