A pair of St. Clair Shores schools kicked off the 2010-2011 varsity wrestling campaign on a high note, combining to finish the four-team meet 3-1.

Lake Shore paced the local squads, ousting the host school, Lutheran North, 51-21, then capping the night off with a victory over the Lakeview Huskies, 51-24.

"It's a good start for us," Shorians coach Dominic Zombo said. "These were two pretty good teams we wrestled tonight, and I was really pleased we leave here with two wins. Those were solid lineups against us tonight. It's a good way for us to start the season."

Zombo said these early-season matches are important because it gives coaches a chance to take a look at what needs to be addressed in practice and assess where the team is at to start the season.

"A lot this wrestling right now, especially with the young guys on the team, is just taking a look at what we're doing wrong," Zombo said. "Then in practice we'll work on some of the common stuff we saw with the younger guys. For the advanced guys, we try and get the instruction more individual. Overall though, these meets are very good for us."

Lakeview coach Kenny Lowry agreed.

"It's the first meet of the year, and we definitely see things that we need to work on in these early matches and we put those things in our notes," Lowry said. "And starting tomorrow, and into next week, we'll do that. We came in here tonight hoping for two wins, we got one. That's OK ."

The Huskies took down Grosse Pointe South in the opening match, 30-22, before falling to Lake Shore to close out the meet.

"I thought we wrestled very tough in the first match against Grosse Pointe South," Lowry said. "Against Lake Shore, we just weren't prepared."

Both coaches have high hopes for the season, with Lakeview looking to capture a team district title.

"That is our goal as a team this year, to win districts," Lowry said. "We've got a long way to go, and that showed tonight. But we think we can do that this season. Most of these guys aren't where they want to be right now. So, we'll keep working hard and see what happens."

Zombo knows these matches are important, but not as important as what happens later in the year.

"You know, if we would've lost both matches tonight I wouldn't have felt much different about our performance," the Shorians coach said. "It's about how we wrestled. When you've been doing this a while, you figure out that it's what happens at the end that really matters. Tonight I wanted to see us wrestle hard. We did that for the most part."

Zombo says his team hopes to contend in the Macomb Area Conference Blue, a new division for the team.

"It's new for us, and I would like to see us finish somewhere in the top three or four," he said. "And I think we could have three or four kids going to regionals this year too."

Lutheran North finished the quad-meet 1-1, while Grosse Pointe South wrapped up the event 0-2.