Looking at the 10 GHSA sports that will decide champions over the next 6 weeks

The spring playoff season, the busiest time on the GHSA athletic calendar each academic year, gets under way this week when playoffs begin in three sports and team champions will be crowned in three others.

The state soccer playoffs are set to begin Tuesday night, followed by baseball on Wednesday. The first round of the tennis playoffs, which have a more fluid schedule, are expected to be completed by Thursday.

Championship events in the coming week include gymnastics on Wednesday and Friday, slow-pitch softball on Wednesday and Thursday and esports on Saturday.

Here’s a look at the 10 sports that will decide their champions over the next six weeks.

Esports

Playoffs for the Spring season were held last week to determine the teams in each game that will advance to the state championships, to be held Saturday at the Bartow County Schools Esports Arena in Cartersville. This season’s games include Rocket League (A-3A), Splatoon 3 and Marvel Rivals. Fall season champions were Lambert (League of Legends), Trinity Christian (Mario Kart 8), Lowndes (Smash 5A-6A), Northview (Smash 3A-4A) and Commerce (Smash 1A-2A)

Slow-pitch softball

The all-classification, double-elimination state tournament will be played Wednesday and Thursday at Twin Creeks Softball Complex in Woodstock. The past three state champions — Richmond Hill (2025), Creekview (2024) and West Laurens (2023) — will be among the eight teams competing in first-round games Wednesday. This is expected to be the final slow-pitch championship, as the sport was reclassified as an Invitational Activity for 2027 instead of a Championship Activity because the number of participating schools dropped below the required 32 for the third consecutive season. There were 26 participating schools this year, 19 of which played in the qualifying sectionals last week.

Gymnastics

The state preliminaries and championships will be held Wednesday and Friday at Buford Arena. Individual and team championships will be crowned in two divisions — classes A-4A and 5A-6A. Preliminaries on Wednesday will begin at 2:30 p.m. for A-4A teams and 6:30 for 5A-6A teams. The championships will begin at 6:30 p.m. Friday. The gymnastics competition was an all-classification event until splitting into two divisions in 2019. North Oconee has won six consecutive titles in the smaller-school division. North Forsyth ended Buford’s three-year reign in the higher division last year.

Soccer

The first of five rounds in the eight classifications begins Tuesday with girls games in classes 5A, 3A, A Division I and A Division II, followed by the boys in those classes the next night. Second-round games will be played April 28-May 1, with quarterfinals and semifinals the following week. Championship games will be May 12-15 at Duluth High School (four classifications), May 12-13 at St. Pius (two classes) and May 14-15 at Upson-Lee High School (two classes).

Baseball

The playoffs begin this week, but the championships will mark the final GHSA athletic events of the academic year. The finals will be played May 22-23 at AdventHealth Stadium in Rome, Synovus Park in Columbus and Georgia Southern, and May 25-27 in Gwinnett Field in Lawrenceville. The exact schedule will be set later. The first of five rounds in each of the eight classes begins Wednesday, with one round each week leading up to the finals. All matchups in each round will consist of a best-of-three series.

Tennis

The regular season came to an end last Friday, and the playoffs begin this week with 16 boys and 16 girls matches in each of the eight classifications. First-round matches are to be completed by Thursday. Other completion dates are April 29 for the second round, May 4 for the quarterfinals and May 8 for the semifinals. Championship matches will be played on May 13 at the Rome Tennis Center at Berry College.

Lacrosse

The regular season ends Wednesday, and the first of five playoff rounds will begin on April 27. There will be three 24-team brackets for both boys and girls, loosely based on enrollment. Division 3 will consist of the largest schools, with Division 2 and Division 1 made up of smaller schools. The championship games will be played May 13-15 at West Forsyth High School, with the schedule to be determined.

Bass fishing

The state championship will be held May 9 at Lake Sinclair in Milledgeville. Winners of the qualifying tournaments held in February, March and early April were Bryce Carey and Pryce Jenkinson of Buford, AJ Bagby and Tessa Jones of Toombs County and Eli Crawford and Kolby McLeod of Brantley County. The winning team in 2025 was Greenbrier’s Tripp Tamasi and Matthew Johnson, who caught five fish weighing a total of 20 pounds, 9 ounces. At least 100 teams are expected to compete at this year’s event.