Josh Hamrick (top) won second place at the Packer Classic, which closed out a very successful December for Tift County wrestling. Area duals are Saturday, with the top two schools moving on to state.

TIFTON — Tift County High wrestling faces its first major challenge of 2018 Saturday. The area duals are at Camden County and the Blue Devils are looking for a spot in the state duals, which will be next week.

“It’ll be tough,” said head coach Shawn Watson, whose team enters with a 17-11 mark for the season.

The top two teams in the competition advance to state next week.

Camden is the tourney favorite and for good reason; the Wildcats have won the last three state team duals championships as well as the past three state championships at the traditional tournament.

Besides Camden and Tift, Lowndes and Colquitt County will compete. Watson said he expects some “bang-bang matches” from all the teams at the area duals.

Injuries have Watson crossing his fingers — “A couple of them are banged up” — but that does not seem to be affecting their overall performance.

“We’re wrestling well right now,” Watson said.

Tift had an exception December, starting with the Tift Duals, where they finished 3-1.

Later in the month, they won the Hornet Duals at Cook, Gorilla Warfare at Berkmar and the Packer Classic at Colquitt County. The Blue Devils also went 2-2 at the Kyle Maynard Duals at Collins Hill, one of the state’s top meets.

Bronson Lott has been among Tift’s top wrestlers. He won the 160-pound weight class at Berkmar and took the top spot at Colquitt County, where Rod Redding was first at 170 pounds.

Gorilla Warfare had several local runners-up and they were even better at Colquitt where eight wrestlers made the semifinals and four advanced to the finals. Redding and Lott won, with Seth Spillers and Josh Hamrick finishing in second place.

At the Kyle Maynard meet, Tift defeated Milton and Hillgrove.

“I’m proud of the way we wrestled,” Watson said.

Beyond advancing to state, he would like a 20-win season. That seems likely, considering the squad still has the Syrupmaker Invitational to go in the regular season. After that meet, Tift will concentrate on individual efforts, beginning with the area tournament at Camden Jan. 27, with sectional and and state to follow.