Highland Faces the Music to Win 8th

The Quartz Hill High wrestling team dimmed the lights on Wednesday and burst into its own gym from the theme to the movie “2001.”

It was an appropriate start because the Rebels will have to wait until at least next year to end Highland’s string of consecutive Golden League titles.

Dominating from the start, Highland gave Quartz Hill a painful dose of reality and needed only nine bouts to settle matters in a 53-9 victory at Quartz Hill.

“We knew we would have to wrestle stupid in order for them to beat us,” said John King of Highland, who won his match at 160 pounds against Jeremiah Fletcher. “We read in the morning paper that they treated our victory over them at the Quartz Hill tournament as a fluke.

“We were prepared and we knew that on pure talent, they couldn’t hang.”

The Bulldogs (31-3-1, 4-0 in league matches) clinched their eighth consecutive league title and have won 38 consecutive league dual meets.

Highland has never lost a varsity or junior varsity Golden League match.

“They went out and dominated,” Coach Mike Young of Highland said. “They take this league championship seriously.

“No team wants to become the first team to lose.”

The Bulldogs proved that from the start with 103-pounder Mike Estrada pinning Jeremy Lloyd of Quartz Hill in 19 seconds.

With the spark provided by Estrada, Highland won the next five bouts, including pins from Josh Sanders and Wes Alleman.

The Rebels (23-2, 3-1), ranked fifth in the region by The Times, did not wrestle poorly but could not match the Bulldogs, in perhaps their best performance of the season.

Highland, ranked No. 2, made minimal mistakes and had only one wrestler in danger of being pinned.

Quartz Hill managed narrow victories by Patrick Wood at 140 pounds, Dustin Wyly at 145 and Mario Oggs at 171.

“That was outstanding,” Young said. “We didn’t give up any back points and we didn’t make any big mistakes.”

The Rebels suffered a double loss in the 152-pound match when Christopher Newling injured his lower right leg while trailing Brad Wolfenstein, 4-0.

It appeared Newling, who was taken to Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center by ambulance, suffered a broken leg.

Wolfenstein was awarded the victory by injury default to give Highland a 34-6 lead with five bouts remaining.

“It was terrible what happened to Newling,” Young said. “He’s real tough and he had beaten Brad earlier in the year.”

After Wolfenstein’s victory, King mathematically eliminated Quartz Hill with his victory at 160 pounds.

The Bulldogs closed by winning four of the last five weight classes.

“I knew when we hit their middleweights that [Quartz Hill] was going to be a brick wall,’ Young said.

“They aren’t as bad as the final score indicated. Quartz Hill’s a good team but we did what we had to do.”