Team captains Tim Breyer and Tony Lyssiotis came into this year’s wrestling season with a vengeance. The two Oxford varsity wrestlers had one thing on their minds – to win individual state titles.
And this past Saturday, the two Oxford wrestlers reached their goals: Breyer won his state title in the 171 weight class and Lyssiotis won at 215.
Co-captain Tim Breyer finished his state finals competition with a 43-3 record. In his state finals match he went up against Allen Park’s Christian Sinnott, with a 50-1 record, and won by points 10-4.
“I was pretty much thinking one match at a time,” said Breyer. “At that point, I new I had to do it. I lost to the same kid two years before at state and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.”
Breyer said he had some inside help when preparing for state competition. His brother Willy, who was a state champion at 215 pounds, helped him to learn some things that he wasn’t already using.
“I trained a lot with him,” said Breyer. “He taught me some things that I was able to use to shut down my Allen Park opponent so he didn’t have any offensive moves.”
Since he had placed second for the past couple of years in state competition, winning this year meant even more to Breyer.
“When I first saw my brother do it, I just knew that I wanted to accomplish the same thing,” he said. “I finally did it – it’s been a dream all my life.”
Co-captain Tony Lyssiotis made a personal decision before even beginning individual wrestling competition – he moved up a weight class from 189 to 215.
“I knew I could take second at 189, but I didn’t see the point in working all these years and then settling for second instead of reaching for the top.”
Lyssiotis finished his state season with a 42-2 record. In his final match-up he faced off against Ludington’s Phillip Gable, who had a 60-3 record. Lyssiotis won the match 14-13 by points.
“It was exhilarating,” he said. “I was just dumbfounded that I reached the peak, and then to have a lot of my family there and being able to celebrate with them was just great.”
To prepare for the big event, Lyssiotis said he didn’t really try to learn anything new, he just took what he already had and pushed his skills to the max.
“I drilled a lot more than during the regular season and just peaked what I already knew,” he said.
Both Breyer and Lyssiotis will be spending the next couple of weeks conditioning for national competition.
“We’ll be running and lifting the next couple of days and then hitting the mat again next week,” said Breyer.
“We plan on conditioning harder than ever before for nationals,” Lyssiotis agreed. National competitions are scheduled for March 28-31.