You can forget about Lovejoy’s 0-3 record in non-region games.
The Wildcats (2-3, 2-0) showed they plan to be contenders in the 4-AAAAAA title race with a 28-27 victory Friday over perennial playoff team Stephenson that left them in sole possession of first place in the region. Lovejoy is a half-game ahead of Tucker and Drew, which won their region openers this weekend.
Stephenson took a 14-0 lead in the first quarter, but Lovejoy scored the game’s next 28 points. The Wildcats survived when Stephenson missed an extra-point attempt and a field goal in the final minutes.
"We had a couple of hiccups and got behind them," Lovejoy coach Edgar Carson told Jason Longshore for the Clayton News Daily. "We've been struggling here lately to close out ballgames. We've been talking about it all week long, and our team pulled together, kept fighting, and found a way to pull it out."
Lovejoy is likely to be favored in all of its remaining games except possibly Tucker, which it will face at Adams Stadium on Oct. 14 in a game that ultimately could decide the region championship.
The three teams that beat Lovejoy in non-region play – East Coweta, Stockbridge and Spalding – have a combined record of 10-2.
Here are some of the other big stories in Class AAAAAA from Week 5:
*Battle of top 10 teams: Sixth-ranked Northgate (4-0, 2-0) remained unbeaten on the season and tied for first place in 5-AAAAAA by outlasting No. 5 Creekside 61-48 in an important region game. The Vikings are tied for first place with Mays, a 51-0 winner over New Manchester, and just ahead of unbeaten Alexander, which had the week off. Northgate and Mays play in the regular-season finale on Nov. 5 at Lakewood Stadium.
*Off to a good start: Dalton picked up the biggest victory on the first weekend of region play in 6-AAAAAA, knocking off previously unbeaten Sprayberry 45-16. The Catamounts are joined in first place by Harrison, Allatoona and Sequoyah, which won their games on Friday. Allatoona travels to Harrison on Friday, while Dalton and Sequoyah are off, so the Allatoona-Harrison winner will be alone in first place. Dalton plays Allatoona and Harrison in the final three weeks of the season.
*Better bring the offense: Anybody planning to beat one of the teams in 1-AAAAAA should be prepared to score a lot of points. Houston County, Northside-Warner Robins, Valdosta, Lee County and Coffee had another perfect weekend, improving their combined record to 22-1. And they did it by averaging 53 points per team. No Region 1 team has scored fewer than 20 points in a game this season.
*Fromm watch: Houston County's Jake Fromm surpassed 2,000 yards passing this season when he threw for 394 Thursday in a 63-28 victory over Warner Robins, according to the Macon Telegraph. That brings his season total 2,236, almost halfway to the single-season record of 4,560 set by Lassiter's Hutson Mason in 13 games in 2009. According to GHSF Daily's Leaderboard, only one other quarterback in the state – Griffin's Tylan Morton – had more than 1,000 yards passing going into this week's games.
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