Redmond’s Billy Jackson, bottom, wrestles against Kyle Schertenleib in the 106-pound match against Hillsboro during the Oregon Classic at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center in Redmond last year.

It is that time of year when wrestling mats cover the ground at the Deschutes County Fair & Expo Center as the state’s best wrestlers gather in Redmond for the Oregon Classic.

Sixteen high school teams in each of the five classifications, along with 12 girls teams, will spend Friday and Saturday battling it out on the mats for the unofficial dual-meet state championship.

Several local teams could keep the titles in Central Oregon.

“What a great deal for Central Oregon, wrestling is alive and well here,” said Culver coach JD Alley. “Culver, La Pine, Crook County, Mountain View, Redmond … really high-caliber wrestling. I hope people don’t take that for granted.”

In many ways, the Oregon Classic is a preview of which wrestlers will stand on the top step of the podium and which team will be hoisting the blue championship trophy at the state meet the final weekend in February. Teams get an up-close look at some of the state’s other toughest wrestlers and teams.

“You might not see them head-to-head,” said La Pine coach Aaron Flack. “But you get a good bearing on where kids are at and where you are at as a team heading into the postseason.”

Where the Oregon Classic differs from most tournaments is in its structure. Typically a wrestling tournament has a couple wrestlers from each team in a weight class and the points scored throughout the tournament by a wrestler are tallied into a team score.

The Oregon Classic, on the other hand, is a dual-meet tournament, in which teams will put together 14-wrestler lineups and compete against another team. The team with the most points in the dual advances, rather than just an individual.

Tournaments are more prevalent than dual meets because they allow wrestlers to maximize the number of matches wrestled in a season, so getting multiple dual meets in one weekend is a reason the Oregon Classic is one of Flack’s favorite events.

“Every match counts,” he said. “This one requires 14 guys to go out and do their job. It is really based on a total team effort. That is what I like about it, it gets the whole team camaraderie going. There is a lot of energy, more so than another tournament.”

Even if a wrestler loses a match, it can still be beneficial for the team.

If a wrestler can avoid a technical fall or getting pinned, which gives teams bonus points, that could be the difference between winning and losing.

“It is all about matchups,” Alley said. “These dual meets, the average kids can win you a championship by not giving up bonus points.”

Winners of the Oregon Classic tend to do well at the state meet. Last year, four of the six teams that won at the Classic — 6A Newberg, 5A Crescent Valley, 3A La Pine and 2A/1A Culver — went on to win their respective classifications at state. While last year’s 4A Classic winner Sweet Home and the Thurston girls team finished as state runners-up.

La Pine, which won its first Oregon Classic title last year, rode that momentum to a league title and eventually a state title.

“It was a stepping stone to where we wanted to go as a program,” Flack said. “It definitely led to a great, great year for us. Hopefully we are going to see the same things we saw last year, that is the plan anyway.”

Culver has plenty at stake this weekend, as the dominant 2A/1A program with 14 state titles to its name has won the Oregon Classic every year since 2006.

“We take quite a bit of pride in this tournament,” Alley said. “But this won’t be an easy tournament for us.”

The tournament starts at 8 a.m. Friday with the Class 2A/1A and 3A teams. Class 4A and girls duals start at 11 a.m. and the 6A and 5A teams start wrestling at 2:30 p.m. The quarterfinals are set for Saturday, with the championship rounds starting at 12:20 p.m.