The James River wrestlers will be in Grayson County Saturday for the sub-region tournament. The tournament is basically for seeding purposes.

“Our Regions does not do Conference tournaments, and we advance everyone to the Region,” said River coach Tim Jennings. “So this is essentially that stage of the season. We’re still inconsistent with our offense and so that is our major area of focus from this point on. You either want it or you don’t at this point, so that’s our approach for the next two-plus weeks. ”

River warmed up for the post-season by wrestling in the Highlander Invitational at Glenvar High School last Saturday. The Knights finished ninth in the 12-school tournament with one runner-up finish, two thirds and two fourths. Rural Retreat, the defending Group 1A state champ, won the tournament with Glenvar second and Parry McCluer third.

Travis Sisson took a second for River at 220. He pinned Tae Hale of Salem in the semifinal in 3:35 but lost to Cade Rouse of Rural Retreat in the final. Sisson is now 34-3.

Thirds went to Tyler Meadows at 160 and Levi Walker at heavyweight. Meadows beat Terence Maloney of Glenvar in the consolation final to improve to 27-7 on the season.

“Tyler had to wrestle the Glenvar kid twice on Saturday, bringing that total to four times thus far,” said Jennings. “They wrestle so similarly that they really know each other pretty well.”

At heavyweight, Walker lost his first match but wrestled back to win three times in the consolation bracket, including 3-2 decision over Jared Phillips of Graham in the final. He’s now 24-14.

“Levi has really started to hit his stride as of late,” said Jennings. “He’s sorta figured a few things out when it comes to wrestling the big boys, but we need to find some offense going into the postseason.”

Josh Ferguson took a fourth at 152 while Jordan Murray was fourth at 195.

“We have been terribly inconsistent at times,” said Jennings. “That is the chief area of concern at this point for us. We are either conditioned or we’re not; we’re not going to learn a bunch of new stuff. We’re going to polish what we already do and get ready to compete. Everything is based off of this weekend. Like I said, they either want to go to states, or they do not.”