The Social Circle High School Wrestling Team is heading to the GHSA Team State wrestling tournament this weekend for the third year in a row.

The Redskins finished second this past weekend at the Area 4-AA dual wrestling tournament, falling to Jefferson High School 48-15.

The loss was just the third for the Redskins this season.

Eight teams participated on Saturday at the 4-AA Area Duals Wrestling Tournament, including Jefferson, Greater Atlanta Christian, Laney, Oglethorpe, Rabun County, Social Circle, Union County and Washington-Wilkes.

The Redskins beat Oglethorpe 75-6 in the first round, while posting a victory over Greater Atlanta Christian in the semifinals 38-24 before losing in the finals to Jefferson.

It was the second year in a row that SCHS beat GAC in the semifinals only to lose to the defending state champions, Jefferson, in the finals.

"We knew that it was going to be battle with GAC," Social Circle coach Randy Prater said. "They finished in the top five in the state last year and gave us a battle at last year’s area semifinal.

"They have a strong team and had some transfers that strengthened their line-up even more. In any other Area, they would be in the state tournament, but we wrestled well and got the win.”

The four Area champions representing Class AA are Bremen, Jefferson, Lovett and Toombs County. The other four other teams that qualified for state are Social Circle, East Laurens, Spencer and Pepperell.

At the state duals, Jefferson will represent the class with the No. 1 seed, Social Circle the No. 2 seed, Bremen the No. 3 seed and Toombs County the No. 4 seed. Social Circle is the only team to be seeded without winning its Area tournament.

“This year the seeding criteria changed, and it worked in our favor drawing the No. 2 seed," Prater said. "Even though we didn’t win our Area, beating Bremen earlier in the season really helped us, along with the wins we posted over some other area champions that are outside of our classification.''

The Redskins will begin tournament action on Friday against Lovett at 1:15 p.m. The winner of the Social Circle/Lovett contest will see the winner of Bremen/East Laurens.

Social Cricle finished the season with a 20-3 dual competition record.