Four unranked Class AAAAAA boys basketball teams – Heritage-Conyers, Lakeside-Evans, Coffee and Tri-Cities – are in the final eight after winning their second-round state tournament games on Thursday.
The biggest surprise of the group is Lakeside, which entered the tournament at 13-12 after finishing as the No. 4 seed in Region 3-AAAAAA. The Panthers finished in second place in the regular season but lost to Grovetown and Evans in the region tournament. Lakeside, which has beaten Stephenson and Richmond Hill in the playoffs, will play at No. 2 Gainesville in the quarterfinals.
The other No. 4 seed that reached the quarterfinals is Tri-Cities, which beat 10th-ranked South Cobb in the first round and Dacula 84-67 on Thursday. Tri-Cities is 21-9 and was ranked for most of the season before a 2-4 slump down the stretch knocked them out of the top 10. The Bulldogs will next play at No. 6 Jonesboro.
Heritage (Region 3) and Coffee (Region 1) were not in the top 10 but did win their region championships. Heritage (16-8) has beaten Drew and Bradwell Institute in the state tournament and will meet No. 9 North Atlanta in the quarterfinals. Coffee (20-7) has eliminated Effingham County and Grovetown and will next travel to defending state champion and top-ranked Hughes.
The only unranked girls team to reach the quarterfinals is Coffee, the No. 2 seed from Region 1. The Trojans are one of only five unranked girls teams in any classification to reach the final eight.
Here’s a recap of the second round of the Class AAAAAA tournament and a peak at the quarterfinals, which will be played Tuesday and Wednesday. Complete second-round scores and the quarterfinal matchups are listed below.
Boys
*Region pride: Two regions – 3-AAAAAA and 5-AAAAAA – have two teams each in the quarterfinals, and in both cases it was the No. 1 and No. 4 seeds that survived. Region 3 champion Heritage and fourth-place team Lakeside are still standing after victories on Thursday. Region 5 had all four of its teams in the second round, and No. 1 Hughes and No. 4 Tri-Cities made it to the quarters. Defending champion Hughes is one of three remaining teams (along with Jonesboro and Gainesville) with a state title.
*Top performances: Coffee's Jayce Moore scored 37 of the Trojans' 74 points in a 74-70 victory over Grovetown. … Gainesville's Jarrell Rosser scored 16 points and the Red Elephants made 20 of 24 free-throw attempts in an 82-57 victory over Alexander. Gainesville has won 19 consecutive games heading into its quarterfinal matchup with Lakeside. … Jonesboro's Jamari Smith had 23 points and eight rebounds in a 62-51 win over Brunswick despite being limited to 20 minutes because of foul trouble.
*Worth noting: Coffee is the only school that got its boys and girls teams into the quarterfinals. The boys' victory over Grovetown completed a doubleheader sweep on Thursday after the girls team beat Stephenson 55-50 earlier in the evening. The Coffee boys are in the quarterfinals for the first time since 2004, and the girls are in for the first time since a 1993 semifinal appearance. … North Atlanta is in the quarterfinals for the first time in school history. The Warriors had never won a state playoff game until this season.
*Up next: No. 6 Jonesboro will have the higher ranking, the higher seeding and home-court advantage, but the Cardinals will be seeking revenge when they meet Tri-Cities in the quarterfinals. The Bulldogs beat Jonesboro 83-67 when they met at the Peach State Classic in late December. The loss was the first of four in five games for Jonesboro, which is 14-3 since that slump. Jonesboro has beaten Evans and Brunswick in the state tournament, while Tri-Cities has beaten South Cobb and Dacula, both on the road.
Girls
*Region pride: Two regions – 1-AAAAAA and 4-AAAAAA – have two teams each in the quarterfinals. Valdosta and Coffee, the top two seeds from Region 1, picked up second-round victories and will try to break metro Atlanta's hold on the title. No team from outside of Fulton, DeKalb, Cherokee or Fayette has won the championship in the state's second-largest class since Glenn Hills in 2002. No. 1-ranked Lovejoy and eighth-ranked Tucker will be the representatives from Region 4.
*Top performances: Ashlee Austin scored 18 points for Northview in a 55-35 victory over New Manchester. … Harrison's Sarah Woghiren and Audrey Jordan scored 18 points each and combined to go 13-for-17 from the free-throw line in a 61-54 victory over fifth-ranked Lanier. … Lovejoy's Genesis Bryant had 18 points, three assists and four steals in a 52-23 win over Northside-Warner Robins, a game Lovejoy trailed 3-2 at the end of the first quarter. … Winder-Barrow's Olivia Nelson-Ododa and Jakayla Sullivan had double-doubles in a 61-49 victory over Creekview. Nelson-Ododa had 17 points and 14 rebounds, and Sullivan had 15 and 11.
*Worth noting: Valdosta is in the quarterfinals for the first time since 2013, and a victory against Douglas County would put the Wildcats in the semifinals for the first time since 2001. … Five of the eight quarterfinalists (Harrison, Douglas County, Northview, Winder-Barrow and Lovejoy) also made it to the final eight last season. The three that didn't make the return trip were state champion Mays (eliminated in region tournament), Stephenson (lost in the second round) and Chattahoochee (lost in region tournament).
*Up next: No. 1 Lovejoy and No. 2 Winder-Barrow would've made for a great state final, but that matchup will come a couple of rounds earlier when they meet in the quarterfinals. Lovejoy reached the semifinals last season, and Winder-Barrow, playing without injured star Olivia Nelson-Ododa, lost to state champion Mays in the quarters. "No. 1 versus No. 2, so they say. If you can't get up for that one then I don't know what you can get up for," Lovejoy coach Cedric King told Luke Strickland of the Clayton News-Daily.
State tournament scores, schedule
Boys
Second-round scores
(R7 #1) North Atlanta 91, (R5 #2) Douglas County 79
(R3 #1) Heritage-Conyers 83, (R2 #3) Bradwell Institute 73
(R8 #1) Gainesville (R5 #3) Alexander 57
(R3 #4) Lakeside-Evans 68, (R2 #2) Richmond Hill 58
(R5 #1) Hughes 70, (R8 #3) Lanier 57
(R1 #1) Coffee 74, (R3 #2) Grovetown 70
(R5 #4) Tri-Cities 84, (R8 #2) Dacula 67
(R4 #2) Jonesboro 62, (R2 #1) Brunswick 51
Quarterfinal games
(R3 #1) Heritage-Conyers at (R7 #1) North Atlanta
(R3 #4) Lakeside-Evans at (R8 #1) Gainesville
(R1 #1) Coffee at (R5 #1) Hughes
(R5 #4) Tri-Cities at (R4 #2) Jonesboro
Girls
Second-round scores
(R7 #1) Northview 55, (R5 #2) New Manchester 35
(R1 #2) Coffee 55, (R4 #4) Stephenson 50
(R8 #1) Winder-Barrow 61, (R6 #2) Creekview 49
(R4 #1) Lovejoy 52, (R1 #3) Northside-Warner Robins 23
(R5 #1) Douglas County 85, (R7 #2) Pope 45
(R1 #1) Valdosta 67, (R3 #2) Greenbrier 51
(R6 #1) Harrison 61, (R8 #2) Lanier 54
(R4 #2) Tucker 54, (R2 #1) Bradwell Institute 35
Quarterfinal games
(R1 #2) Coffee at (R7 #1) Northview
(R4 #1) Lovejoy at (R8 #1) Winder-Barrow
(R1 #1) Valdosta at (R5 #1) Douglas County
(R4 #2) Tucker at (R6 #1) Harrison
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