COURTLAND—The wrestlers from Southampton County and Franklin schools are back from their respective tournaments.

Devine Fenner, Southampton High School, finished fourth in the 3A 152 pound class; Khiry Reese, Franklin High School, finished eighth in the 1A 195 pound class; and Stephone Pearson, FHS, finished seventh in the 1A 220 pound class.

Coach Tim Mason said that he thought Fenner, who went 2-2 at states, represented well.

“I think he probably did better than what he thought Mason was going to do,” he said. “Fourth place is good for someone from Southampton. He wrestled hard in all of his matches.”

Fenner finished his season with a record of 21-5.

Of the season, Mason said with the exception of a trio of seniors, which included Fenner, it was a rebuilding year.

“We were able to get our guys some experience,” Mason said, but he added that part of the season was cut 7 matches due to the snow. “We’ve got some young guys, ninth-graders, who have a lot of promise. I think we are a year or two out.”

Reese went 1-3 at the tournament, and his head coach Daniel “Bull” Johnson said he did well, considering he was not the starter. Reese stepped in toward the end of the year to fill in at the 195 weight class.

“He was wrestling down about 20 pounds in the class,” Johnson said. “But he did a good job of stepping in place of the starter. I was proud of him, as were all the coaches.”

Reese finished with a record of 12-7.

Pearson went 2-3 at the tournament, said Johnson. Pearson finished with a record of 14-7.

“He did really well to make it to the state tournament as a sophomore in his first year of wrestling,” he said. “We were all amazed with home much he has learned for just having one year of wrestling.

“We’re expecting big things from him in the next two years.”

Johnson said as a program, this was an average year, but he attributed some of that to the snow, which cut many matches.

“We could have done a lot better if we could have gotten more wrestling in,” he said. “We should have had 29 matches, but we ended up with only 16. Half our season was lost to the snow.

“And when it snowed, we couldn’t practice. We missed practice time and match time. But for what we had time to do, I think we wrestled to our ability.”