Hillgrove defended its region title in a game between top-five teams in the highest class while Colquitt County and Blessed Trinity defended No. 1 rankings against worthy opponents on Friday night in the penultimate weekend of the Georgia high school football regular season.
Meanwhile, Creekside upset Class AAAAA No. 4 Douglas County 24-23 – coming from 16-0 down in a Region 5 game - and moved to within a victory of a region title just one season removed from an 0-10 finish.
Hillgrove, unranked in preseason, defeated the preseason Region 3-AAAAAAA favorite, Marietta, 48-24 to earn the No. 1 seed in the deepest region in the highest classification. Hillgrove, ranked No. 4, is 9-0 for the first time since its only perfect regular season of 2011. Marietta fell to 4-5, and all five losses have been to teams in at least one top-50 national poll, Hillgrove included.
Colquitt County, a consensus top-10 team nationally, also improved to 9-0 and looked nearly invincible in a 45-7 rout of No. 9 Tift County. Tift had upset Colquitt on a last-seconds field goal last season. Colquitt, the 2017 runner-up, can clinch Region 1-AAAAAAA with a victory over Lowndes next week.
Blessed Trinity defeated No. 7 Marist 10-7 in a Region 7-AAAA game. The victory gives Blessed Trinity the region title, but a year ago, Marist beat Blessed Trinity and won the region only to lose a rematch in the state final. So stay tuned.
Creekside got down 23-7 with just a minute left in the third quarter but won in the final two minutes on a touchdown and two-point conversion. Creekside (6-3, 6-1) can become the first team to win a region title after going 0-10 since Adairsville in 2000. Creekside must beat South Paulding (2-7, 2-5) next week.
Here are a few other results of note on Friday.
*Southwest DeKalb won its first region, 5-AAAAA, title since 2009 with a 20-19 victory over Arabia Mountain. Southwest is 9-0 for the first time since 1999.
*Dacula won Region 8-AAAAAA with a 23-0 victory over Lanier. That’s three straight region titles, and four in five seasons, for the Falcons.
*No. 9 Valdosta defeated No. 5 Northside-Warner Robins 46-44 in a Region 1-AAAAAA game. A.J. Akins’ 40-yard field goal with 2:02 put Valdosta ahead. Valdosta is 6-4 and will get the No. 2 seed behind No. 1-ranked Lee County in the playoffs. Northside is 4-5. Suffice to say, Region 1 has a good reputation to keep so many teams ranked despite their losses, all to other ranked teams.
*Harrison defeated No. 6 Sequoyah 23-17 in a Region 6-AAAAAA. Harrison is now 8-1, 6-1 heading into a showdown next week against second-ranked Creekview (9-0, 7-0) for at least a share of first place in the region. Allatoona (7-2, 6-1) also has a stake in things after beating Dalton 27-14 on Friday.
*No. 2 Clinch County defeated No. 6 Charlton County 40-14 in a Class A public-school game known as the Swamp War. Clinch has won four straight in the rivalry.
*Riverside Military upset No. 3 (public) Commerce 20-19 in a Region 8-A game. It was Riverside’s first-ever victory over a top-10 opponent in the Georgia High School Association. The Eagles had been 0-21 in such games.
*North Cobb Christian beat No. 9 (private) Darlington 35-21 in a Region 6-A game. It’s the second ranked opponent that North Cobb Christian has beaten. (Trion was the other on Sept. 14.) North Cobb Christian (8-1, 5-1) had never beaten a ranked opponent until this season, nor made the playoffs, which are now assured in 2018.
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