Let’s take a look at some of the top AA boys and girls games taking place this weekend.
On the girls' side, there's two matchups of top 10 teams: In Region 8, the No. 2 Banks County Lady Leopards (18-4, 8-1) host the No. 8 Rabun County Lady Wildcats (16-4, 4-3) on Saturday, and in non-league play the No. 3 Dodge County Lady Indians (17-3) host A-public's No. 2 Telfair County (19-2) on Friday.
We'll start with the Rabun County-Banks County game. It's the second meeting between the region rivals, with Banks County winning 59-49 at Tiger on Dec. 9. The Lady Leopards currently sit in first place with a 1.5 game lead over Putnam County, while the third-place Lady Wildcats are 0.5 games up on fourth-place Monticello. From a standings perspective, the Lady Wildcats have more at stake and they'll face an uphill challenge having to play this game on the road.
In Eastman, it's Lady Indians' second top-10 matchup in as many games. On Monday, they earned redemption with a 62-58 win over a No. 5 Washington County team that beat them by nearly 20 points earlier in the season. Now they'll try to avoid redemption loss themselves when they play a Telfair Lady Trojans team they beat 62-57 on Nov. 28 — a game played at Telfair. In that game, Destanee Wright and Zannesia Mitchell each scored 19 points to lead the Lady Indians.
In Region 1, the first-place and No. 10 Early County Lady Bobcats (16-5, 5-1) host the second-place Fitzgerald Lady Purple Hurricane (10-4, 4-1) on Saturday in a game that could decide not only first place in the standings, but who will be ranked No. 10 in next week's rankings. It's possible the Lady Hurricane take Early County's spot in the rankings with a win, but the Lady Bobcats won their first meeting 68-61 at Fitzgerald on Jan. 13. The Lady Bobcats had four double digit scorers in that game, including Mykala Timpson (16 points), Ta'Ziaya Jones and Jada George (15 points each), Taliah Wesley (12) and Janya Williams (10).
On the boys' side and in Region 1, the No. 4 and second-place Thomasville Bulldogs (17-3, 3-1) host the first-place Berrien Rebels (11-10, 4-1) on Friday. Though their overall record is underwhelming, the Rebels represent Thomasville's lone region loss, beating the Bulldogs 65-64 at Thomasville on Dec. 9. The win was dramatic, with Berrien's Chris Jennings sinking a 3-pointer as time expired. Another win on Friday and Berrien will take a big step toward securing the top seed of the region tournament.
Other games to keep an eye on:
- No. 3 Dublin boys (16-2, 6-1 3-AA) at Bleckley County (13-7, 6-4)
- No. 8 Therrell boys (12-7, 4-1 6-AA) vs. Washington (7-12, 5-3)
- No. 7 Swainsboro boys (16-3, 11-0 2-AA) vs. Jeff Davis (16-6, 8-3)
All stats and records are sourced from MaxPreps. Follow the AJC’s Class AA coverage on Twitter.
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