TIFTON, Ga. — Shawn Watson refers to his team of Tift County Blue Devil wrestlers as “resilient.”

After a fantastic start to the 2016-17 season, the Devils found themselves mired in injuries and academic issues.

Suddenly, their chances did not look so good to return to the Georgia High School Association state team duals that start Thursday, especially considering the high level of competition that awaited them at area last Saturday: Camden County, Lowndes and Colquitt County.

At the end of the day, though, the Blue Devils were second in area, qualified for another trip to Macon and a chance for its second team banner.

“It’s awesome,” said Watson. “We had a lot of adversity hit us in the mouth, but we’ve been very resilient.”

Pairings were not yet available. Watson said they should be available today. He did have some ideas about some of the teams Tift could be facing.

Watson offers no predictions about state. Tift took fourth place last year after dropping its first meeting to Lambert and having to come back through the consolation bracket. The banner for fourth was the first any of his teams had ever won.

“We’ll see,” he said.

Tift is very proud to be going to Macon, considering that three starters are out with injury and others have had to cut weight to qualify for a smaller weight class.

“We’re one of 16 teams,” he said, adding that many other schools would love to be in the Devils’ position.

Watson’s rearranged lineup for state team duals will have Nate Mayfield (106 pounds), Austin Reese (113), Alex Kain (120), Cody Waldschlager (126), Jake Pratt (132), Gary Coleman (138), Bronson Lott (145), Rod Redding (152), Dalton Burks (160), Braylen Taylor (170), Gerald Coney (182), Charley Powell (195), Brodie Cooper (220) and Mike Howard (heavyweight) competing.

Will Roland, Braden Wilbanks, Garrett Westberry and Malcolm Melton will also travel with the team as alternates.

Last weekend’s area team duals played out much differently that anticipated.

Three teams vied for one spot.

Because of the weather situation last week around Georgia with predicted snowfall in the northern half of the state, the GHSA allowed coaches some liberties with their area tournaments.

Though flurries of snow would have been a surprise to the area, the league allowed Area 1 to deviate from a full-scale tournament as well.

Colquitt County head coach Evan Goff asked all the coaches in the area, including Watson how they felt about awarding Camden County the championship and for the remainder of the schools to wrestle for the second and final slot. Letting Camden stay home was to save the Wildcats from having to make a three-hour trip to Moultrie, where area was held.

Watson pondered the situation. Camden was the top-rated school from the area, but he said there was a desire to compete against them; the Wildcats would have been the second team Tift faced Saturday.

“I still had some kids who wanted to wrestle them,” he said.

In the end, Watson also voted for Camden to be No. 1.

The Devils started the team duals against Lowndes and won easily, 61-8.

Lowndes, Watson said, had several wrestlers out. Colquitt also won over the Vikings, setting up the finals.

Colquitt took the lead to start.

“They jumped out on us early,” said Watson.

But then Tift’s wrestlers began to rally.

“We bounced ahead and didn’t look back,” he said.

Tift County took the dual, 45-31, and advanced to state.