Friday recap: Newton, Valdosta, Stephenson win Top 10 showdowns
Newton and Valdosta won Top 10 football showdowns in Class 7A on Friday night, while Stephenson, Thomasville and Heard County did the same in lower classifications.
Dougherty, Mary Persons, Worth County, Cook and Brooks County upset Top 10 opponents as unranked teams.
Newton, ranked No. 3 in the high class, beat No. 10 Grayson 38-27 and captured first place in Region 4. Unranked in preseason, Newton is 8-0 for the first time and chasing its first region title since 2015. Newton had been 1-9 against Grayson and lost their 2025 meeting 50-3.
Valdosta, ranked No. 4 in Class 7A, beat No. 7 Colquitt County 52-44. That avenges Valdosta’s lone 2025 regular-season loss and leaves the Wildcats (7-0, 1-0) and crosstown rival Lowndes (7-0, 1-0) tied for first place in Region 1.
Also in Class 7A, Douglas County beat East Coweta 27-24. Beating a 6-point favorite, Douglas County (4-3) kept its playoff hopes alive in the face of possible forfeits stemming from two players the GHSA ruled ineligible this month.
In Class 4A, No. 6 Stephenson beat No. 7 Douglass 7-6 and took first place in Region 5. Stephenson is on target for a third straight region title.
No. 3 Thomasville beat No. 2 Jeff Davis 28-25 in Class 2A and took first place in Region 1. The victory was Thomasville’s seventh straight after an opening-game loss to Cairo.
Heard County, the No. 1 team in Class 2A, beat No. 4 Bremen 33-13 to take first place in Region 6. Heard County, seeking its third straight region title, has beaten all seven of its opponents by 20 points or more.
In Class 4A, Dougherty, a 29-point underdog in the Maxwell Ratings, defeated No. 4 Cairo 26-23 in the Albany school’s biggest victory in 21 years. The Trojans took first place in Region 1 in pursuit of their first region title since 2005, also the most recent time Dougherty has beaten a team ranked as highly as Cairo.
Mary Persons beat No. 1 Howard 28-21 in overtime in Region 2-4A. Both are now 4-3. Howard had been ranked this season for the first time in its history.
Worth County beat No. 7 Crisp County 49-19 in Region 1-3A. Worth County (4-3, 2-0), the 2025 Class A Division I champion, was No. 3 in preseason but dropped from the rankings after a 2-3 start.
Cook, a 14-point underdog, upset No. 8 Fitzgerald 21-14 in Region 1-2A. That drops Fitzgerald into sixth place in its region, which features four Top 10 teams, but the Purple Hurricane (5-3, 1-3) is likely to make the playoffs on the strength of its schedule and Postseason Rankings standing.
In the same region, Brooks County beat No. 9 Berrien as an 8-point underdog.
In Class A, No. 8 Bowdon beat No. 9 Trion 34-7.
Three weeks remain in the regular season.