Mark Heathcote hasn’t taken the typical route to athletic success.

The Hudson teenager is home schooled, and he’s a wrestling team of one representing Central High School of Corinth.

But about the only thing that has slowed the Red Devils’ heavyweight during his first two seasons of high school competition was a knee injury suffered late during his freshman year, one that sidelined him from conference, regional and state championship meets.

Heathcote returned healthy last winter, and placed second in the 275-pound division at the Penobscot Valley Conference championships, won the Eastern Maine Class C title and placed second at the Class C state meet.

Now comes the biggest test of his career to date, at Sukee Arena in Winslow on Friday evening when Heathcote is expected to square off against 2007 Nebraska 275-pound state champion Taylor Foss as part of the 23rd Maine-Nebraska Friendship Series.

“I’d like to be the first one to beat him,” said Heathcote, “but I’ll just go out and see how it goes.”

The Winslow event is one of four meets that comprise this year’s Friendship Series, an annual athletic and cultural exchange that rotates each year between Maine and Nebraska, This year’s series is scheduled to start Thursday at York High School, according to Maine director Shawn Guest, head coach at Morse of Bath.

After Friday’s meet at Winslow, the series will continue Monday at Dirigo of Dixfield before concluding Wednesday, June 27, at Morse in Bath. Different Maine teams will compete at each meet against a 15-wrestler contingent from Nebraska.

The Winslow meet is expected to include a number of competitors from Eastern and Midcoast Maine, led by four-time state champion Jeremiah Barkac of Dexter.

Others slated to compete at Winslow are Kristi Pearse, Zach Fields, Murphy McGowan and Jack Simpkins, all of Class B state champion Camden Hills of Rockport; Josh Robbins, Jimmy Spencer, Mike Rolerson and Travis Spencer of Belfast, Tysen Ober of George Stevens Academy of Blue Hill and Jon Pelletier of Bucksport.

Heathcote took up wrestling as a seventh-grader in Hudson, and today continues to help out the Hudson Hornets program as an assistant coach.

And while there hasn’t been enough interest in the sport to field a wrestling team at Central, Heathcote has been able to continue his career in cooperation with the Hermon High School wrestling program coached by Richard Stark.

“If it wasn’t for them, right now I probably wouldn’t be doing anything,” said Heathcote, who has been working out twice weekly for the last four weeks with Hudson middle-school coach Cory Staples in preparation for Friday’s meet.

“Coach Stark and all the people at Hermon have opened their doors to me, they’ve been awesome.”

When Maine hosted Nebraska two years ago, Heathcote was unable to compete as he continued to recover from his knee injury.

But he and his family hosted two Nebraska wrestlers anyway, and that in itself was a learning experience.

“We talked a lot about wrestling,” said Heathcote. “We talked about the differences in wrestling between here and there, and the differences in the rules.”

Two years later comes the chance to test his skills against the best from one of this nation’s schoolboy wrestling hotbeds.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Heathcote said. “I just don’t want to get pinned.”