The Glenvar wrestlers will play host to the annual “Highlander Invitational” tournament this Saturday in the Glenvar High School gym. A dozen teams will compete in the one-day, individual tournament.

Wrestling is set to begin at 9 am and continue until conclusion. Joining the host Highlanders on the mats this year will be Grundy, Graham, Chatham, Lord Botetourt, Northside, Fort Chiswell, James River, Parry McCluer, Wilson Memorial, Randolph Henry and Floyd. It will be Glenvar last competition before the conference championships.

Last weekend the Highlanders competed in the 13-team Rural Retreat Invitational, taking seventh place overall. The Highlanders had five medal winners, including heavyweight champion Maxx Philpott and Tanner Speight, who was runnerup at 106. Terence Maloney finished third at 170 and Christian Smith (160) Brandon Saunders(195) both finished 4th.

“I felt our guys wrestled well overall but a few let close matches slip away by not wrestling at a high level throughout the entire match,” said coach Stan Malek. “Several times we had leads going into the second period and then we allowed our opponents to gain momentum, which resulted in us having to play catch up. Unfortunately we lost several one score matches because of this.”

Host Rural Retreat won the tournament, with George Wythe taking second, Graham third, Northampton fourth and James River fifth. Marion was sixth, followed by Glenvar and Carroll County.