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Sports

Lake Orion Wrestler Charlie Highlen Headed To State Finals

Third place finish in the individual wrestling regionals Saturday at L'Anse Creuse qualifies Highlen for tournament at The Palace of Auburn Hills; Romeo qualifies four wrestlers.

Mike Niziolek, Neighbor
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HARRISON TOWNSHIP – The Lake Orion varsity wrestling team has a pretty good piece to build with.

Dragons sophomore Charlie Highlen is headed back to the state finals after qualifying on Saturday at L’Anse Creuse in the individual wrestling regionals.

“He’s the centerpiece of our team for the next two years for sure,” Lake Orion Cory Kuzinski said of his lone regional qualifier.

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Kuzinski thought an early loss to Oxford’s Kyle Hill (fall 4:41) gave Highlen confidence going into the consolation bracket.

“To how we wrestled Hill last time, it was pretty good for us, he’s really, really good,” Kuzinski said.

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The top four wrestlers from each weight class all move on to compete at The Palace of Auburn Hills in two weeks. A hard fought win in the consolation semifinals over Royal Oak’s Tyler McCullough put Highlen in the state finals.

The two wrestled a couple of times this season and it was easy to see their familiarity with each other on Saturday.

Facing elimination, neither wrestler wanted to make a mistake early in the match. Highlen went into the third round with a 1-0 lead.

With time ticking down, McCullough needed to get to standing to even the score. Highlen wouldn’t give up the advantage and closed out the match with a couple of takedowns to win 6-1.

“The kid wants to go for a homerun move at the end to try and win obviously,” Lake Orion coach Cory Kuzinski said. “We just finished with the takedown, which was good for us.”

Highlen won the consolation finals in another close match. He won a 5-4 decision over Alex Potoniec from Rochester Adams.

Romeo also competed in the L’Anse Creuse regional. It qualified four wrestlers last week at districts and all four qualified for the state finals.

Junior Alex Christofis (152), senior Tayron Womble (112) and junior Evan Richardson (130) all lost in their regional final matches. Junior Larry Rekar (189) won his match in the consolation bracket finals.

Tough Competition

The L’Anse Creuse regional wasn’t lacking in top competition.

“There’s not a bad wrestler here; this is a really tough site,” Rochester High School coach Frank Lafferty said. “It might be one of the toughest (sites) in the state.”

It makes what his team and Oxford accomplished all the more impressive. The schools won more than half of the regional titles up for grabs on Saturday.

All six Falcons wrestlers made it to the regional finals in their respective weight classes. Rochester was only a takedown away from bringing home six regional championships. 

Kaelan Richards (135), Dean Vettesse (140), Aaron Morgan (145), Justin Kim (103) and Shwan Shadaia (189) all won regional titles.

In overtime, Falcons senior Cody DeVoe lost in the championship match to Utica Eisenhower’s Charlie Myers in a 3-2 decision. The 171-pound finals bout was probably the closest match of the night.

“Great day, great day, better than we expected,” Lafferty said.  “Best we’ve ever done.”

Oxford brought 11 wrestlers to the Division 1 regional and all of them are headed to the state finals. It won four regional championships.

The two undefeated wrestlers in the regional stayed that way. Oxford senior Prescott Line (42-0) won the 215-pound bracket and Stoney Creek senior Nick Gajdzik won the heavyweight division (285).

Last year in the state finals, Line and Gajdzik wrestled for the championship in 215-pound bracket.

Gajdzik moved up a weight class this year and they avoided each other in the regionals. Gajdzik’s teammate Serge Andreou wasn’t so lucky. Line pinned Andreou (1:47) in the regional finals.

Wrestling Regionals Coverage

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