Westlake, Roswell and Milton won region titles Friday night while North Cobb earned the final upset of the regular season in Class AAAAAA. Or was it Woodstock?
In the end, the playoff brackets fell into place pretty nicely (see unofficial first-round draw at the bottom).
As far as upsets, North Cobb defeated eighth-ranked Hillgrove 35-24. The result is that North Cobb got the No. 3 seed out of Region 3 and will play third-ranked Colquitt County in the first round.
Tough assignment, but Hillgrove, now the No. 4 seed, will travel even further to top-ranked Lowndes. The last time that happened, in 2016, Lowndes won 92-61 in the highest-scoring game in GHSA history.
And Woodstock beat Walton 30-29 in overtime. Woodstock (3-7, 2-3) didn’t make the playoffs but got a nice send off to its season. It appears the loss doesn’t hurt Walton, which projects to have the No. 2 seed out of Region 4 any way.
Here’s a region-by-region look at how Friday played out. Below that is the first-round playoff draw. It’s unofficial.
Region 1 – Lowndes is the No. 1 seed, Colquitt County the No. 2. That was settled. Camden County beat Tift County 30-20 on Friday to claim the No. 3 seed. Tift is presumably out. As most know, only three teams are guaranteed playoff berths in four-team regions. (That rule goes away in 2020.)
Region 2 – Westlake (6-4, 4-1) beat winless Campbell 42-0 to win a sixth-straight region championship. No Class AAAAAAA school has a longer streak. East Coweta beat Newnan 28-21 for the No. 2 seed. Newnan is No. 3. Wheeler beat Pebblebrook 21-14 to take the No. 4 seed. Wheeler plays at Roswell in the first round. While Roswell will be a heavy favorite, remember that Wheeler defeated Roswell in the regular season last year.
Region 3 – North Cobb's upset of Hillgrove was noted above. The seeds are No. 1 McEachern, No. 2 Marietta, No. 3 North Cobb and No. 4 Hillgrove. Fifth-place North Paulding is expected to get the GHSA's at-large berth and play McEachern in the first round.
Region 4 – Roswell beat Etowah 48-14 to take the No. 1 seed and recover from an upset loss earlier to Cherokee. That's two region titles in a row for the Hornets. Walton lost to Woodstock but still got the No. 2 seed. The Raiders finished tied with Etowah and Cherokee but defeated both this season. Etowah is No. 3, Cherokee No. 4 (presuming our tiebreakers are correct).
Region 5 – Milton clinched the region title with a 33-9 victory over North Forsyth. South Forsyth beat West Forsyth 14-10, which put North, South and West in a three-way tie for second place, each with 3-2 region records. The tiebreaker is point differential in the games among those teams. That puts North at No. 2, South at No. 3 and West at No. 4.
Region 6 – North Gwinnett is the No. 1 seed. Mill Creek beat Collins Hill 24-7 to get the No. 2 seed. Collins Hill is No. 3. Mountain View beat Duluth 55-6 to clinch the No. 4 seed.
Region 7 – Parkview is the No. 1 seed, Norcross the No. 2, Brookwood the No. 3, Central Gwinnett the No. 4. Nothing realistic could've changed that Friday.
Region 8 – Grayson is the No. 1 seed. Archer beat Shiloh 42-14 to get the No. 2 seed. Newton is No. 3. Shiloh is No. 4.
Projected first-round matchups:
(R8 #3) Newton at (R6 #2) Mill Creek
(R2 #4) Wheeler at (R4 #1) Roswell
(R1 #3) Camden County at (R3 #2) Marietta
(R7 #4) Central Gwinnett at (R5 #1) Milton
(R6 #3) Collins Hill at (R8 #2) Archer
(R4 #4) Cherokee at (R2 #1) Westlake
(R3 #3) North Cobb at (R1 #2) Colquitt County
(R5 #4) West Forsyth at (R7 #1) Parkview
(R4 #3) Etowah at (R2 #2) East Coweta
(R6 #4) Mountain View at (R8 #1) Grayson
(R5 #3) South Forsyth at (R7 #2) Norcross
(R3 #4) Hillgrove at (R1 #1) Lowndes
(R2 #3) Newnan at (R4 #2) Walton
(R8 #4) Shiloh at (R6 #1) North Gwinnett
(R7 #3) Brookwood at (R5 #2) North Forsyth
(At-large) at (R3 #1) McEachern
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