So let me get this straight -- Etowah, Westlake, Newton or Central Gwinnett is going to the semifinals in Class AAAAAA?
Whew, what a Friday night.
Newton won its first state-playoff game in history Friday with a 27-14 victory over third-ranked Valdosta. Put another way, a school with no state-playoff victories just beat the school with the most state-playoff victories.
Yes, Newton did win two region playoff games in 1987 and finished 10-3 that season, but Newton didn't have another post-season win ever, and nothing in the state playoffs. Region playoffs were eliminated from the post-season in 1994, and Newton had lost six straight first-round games since then.
Newton’s next opponent is Central Gwinnett – the team that knocked out fifth-ranked North Gwinnett 12-9. North finishes 8-3, the first time the Bulldogs have fallen short of 10 wins in the Bob Sphire era (2006-13). Sphire had been 8-0 in the first round. Central (7-4) hadn’t made the playoffs since 2006 or advanced a round since 2005.
Further, Central's victory set the stage for Region 8 to sweep Region 7. Both regions are full of Gwinnett County teams.
The Central Gwinnett-Newton winner will face the Etowah-Westlake winner. Etowah and Westlake won their first state-playoff games since 2006 on Friday. Neither was an upset, but it’s still odd to see. Westlake, ranked 10th and the champion of Region 3, beat North Paulding 41-13. Etowah, the No. 2 seed from Region 5, beat South Forsyth 48-22.
So in short, somebody that had not won a playoff game since 2007, or longer, will be in the AAAAAA final four this season.
Yeah, I predicted that. :)
To other quarters …
No. 6 Lee County is the highest-ranked team in the upper half of the draw now that Valdosta and North Gwinnett are gone. The Trojans beat Lovejoy 44-6 and now faces Archer. The winner of that gets the Hillgrove-Roswell winner. The only one of those teams that has made a semifinal is Roswell, but Roswell (8-3) is coming off three straight losing seasons, so this quarter is also about underdogs and up-and-comers.
In the third quarter of the draw, get ready for No. 2 Grayson vs. No. 8 Tucker next week. Grayson was impressive in beating No. 7 Mill Creek 24-6. Tucker beat Tift County 31-29 in a back-and-fourth game. The Grayson-Tucker winner is looking at the McEachern-Alpharetta winner. Alpharetta won Region 6, the weakest in AAAAAA, and struggled to beat fourth-seed Cherokee 21-18, so many are going to pick McEachern, the preseason No. 1, in that one. McEachern beat East Coweta 23-3.
In the final quarter of the draw, get ready for No. 1 Colquitt County vs. No. 4 Dacula. Colquitt beat Rockdale County 62-12, same score that Valdosta beat Avondale in the 1971 state-title game. We mention that only because ’71 Valdosta was a national-championship team, and Colquitt is contending for that sort of thing this season. Meanwhile, Dacula beat Peachtree Ridge 17-14. Milton and Hughes are playing in the other second-round game in this quarter.
What’s left of the Class AAAAAA draw –
(R5 #2) Etowah at (R3 #1) Westlake
(R8 #4) Central Gwinnett at (R2 #3) Newton
(R5 #3) Roswell at (R4 #1) Hillgrove
(R1 #3) Lee County at (R8 #1) Archer
(R4 #2) McEachern at (R6 #1) Alpharetta
(R8 #3) Grayson at (R2 #1) Tucker
(R3 #2) Hughes at (R5 #1) Milton
(R8 #2) Dacula at (R1 #1) Colquitt County
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