Wrestling never stops for the athletes at Social Circle High School.

With only about a week-long break following the Georgia High School Association’s traditional state finals, the Redskins had multiple wrestlers back out on the mats.

For the past few months, the Redskins prepared to compete in multiple summer tournaments by practicing day in and day out.

The biggest one of the offseason came at the end of June when the team traveled down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for the AAU National Duals.

The team made the trip down there on July 22 before weighing in the following day.

Pool play started on July 24 and ran for two days before bracket play started on July 26.

The Redskins went an impressive 8-0 in the group stage of the tournament, beating out-of-state powerhouses like Alburnett High School, who was the Iowa state runner-up for their classification.

Redskins head coach Randy Prater told The Walton Tribune that even though the team was able to breeze through the competition, they still faced adversity along the way.

“Even some of the duals that we won were really tough matches,” Prater said. “I love that tournament, because the competition is just so good. It’s high-level wrestling with a bunch of teams from different states that are represented, and that’s just not something our guys are able to see all the time.”

The AAU National Duals was separate from the GHSA season and is structured slightly different.

While most teams bring kids from their programs, bringing other kids from out of district that are in adjoining states (three at the most) is also a possibility. 

The maximum number of kids each team is able to bring is 17, so Social Circle included 14 of their own wrestlers and brought three wrestlers from other Class 1A programs in the state of Georgia.

Fitzgerald’s Malcom Burress, Heritage Christian’s Harrison Murdock, who is a rising freshman, and Ola’s Bryan Papcun were the three additions the Redskins made to their team.

On top of that, seniors that had already graduated could compete with the team one more time. Prater acknowledged that having them around made it even better.

“Sean Crews, Connor Castillo and Caden Prater were all seniors,” Prater said. “The realization that it’s over hits them at different times. It hasn’t really seemed to hit Connor yet, because he’s calm all the time, but it hit my son after the state duals tournament and he got emotional there, and it hit Sean after this tournament. It was just great for them to be out there one more time and contribute to another title.”

After the Redskins fell short in this same tournament last year, they came back with a vengeance to take home the title.

Social Circle ended up in the gold bracket, which was made up of the best eight teams in the tournament. 

They made quick work of their opponents until the semifinal match against Somerset, another team they’ve faced in the past. 

The Redskins won 50-21 to advance to the finals where they defeated the Funky Monkeys, a team out of Florida.

Social Circle had a handful of wrestlers go undefeated during the week, and many others only had one or two losses. On top of that, over half the team earned All-American honors for their performances.

After the Redskins won their third AAU National Duals title, Prater attributed the success to assistant coaches Robert and Emery Cline, who essentially run the team over the summer while Prater helps.

“Robert used to be over at Loganville, and I lured him over here by letting him coach the team during the summer,” Prater said. “They’ve both been so helpful and done a great job coaching the team, preparing them for these tournaments. I couldn’t do it with out them and the rest of the staff.”