The No. 1 Callaway Cavaliers' matchup with 4A’s unranked Thomas County Central had the makings of a playoffs-type setting. The game was a three-plus-hours bus ride away with an unfamiliar opponent they’d never played and against a program with a storied history and a small-town community passionate about high school football.
The result — a Cavs last-minute, come-from-behind 16-14 win — is one they can put in their back pocket and take with them into the state playoffs. According to Kevin Eckleberry of The LaGrange Daily News, the Cavs scored all of their points — two touchdowns and a safety — in the fourth quarter, winning the game on a 5-yard touchdown pass from Demetrius Coleman to Jalin Shephard with seconds remaining. The score capped a 40-second, 58-yard drive.
There are two different angles of the game-winning score — one from Eckleberry, the other from Callaway football.
You can read Eckleberry’s writeup here. Pat Donahue also has a game story for the Thomasville Times-Enterprise.
With the win, the Cavs are 4-0. They’re off again next week — they were on bye last week too — then begin Region 5 play with No. 8 Haralson County.
In by far the biggest upset of the night in 2A, the unranked South Atlanta Hornets defeated the No. 7 Pace Academy Knights 22-14. Todd Holcomb provides historical context to the Hornets' signature win, which improved them to 2-3, 2-1 and dropped the Knights to 2-2, 1-1.
As mentioned in the game preview, were the Hornets to pull off the upset, they would be in the driver’s seat for a No. 2 seed and the right to host their first-ever playoff game. That’s exactly what happened.
The Hornets were 24-point underdogs according to Maxwell’s projections.
The Knights play the No. 4 Lovett Lions next Friday, while the Hornets play Therrell (1-3, 0-2) on Saturday. The Lions (3-1, 3-0), who already beat South Atlanta 37-12 last week, can all but clinch the region championship with a win. They were on bye this week.
Here’s how the rest of the top 10 faired:
- The No. 2-ranked Fitzgerald Purple Hurricane remained undefeated with an impressive 27-17 win at home over Pierce County, the No. 6 team in Class 3A. The Purple Hurricane move to 5-0 while dropping Pierce County to 4-1. They now head onto Region 1 play at Berrien next week.
- The No. 3 Rabun County Wildcats made easy work of 3A’s unranked East Jackson, winning 70-36 to improve to 4-1. AccessWDUN has details. The Wildcats play 6A’s Pope next week in their next-to-last non-region game before entering 8-2A play.
- On Thursday in Region 5, the No. 6 Bleckley County Royals held on to defeat the Dodge County Indians, 38-33, for their second consecutive win in a series the Indians previously dominated. Dave Whitaker has a game writeup for The Bleckley Progress. The Royals (4-1, 1-0) play Monticello next week, while the Indians (1-3, 0-1) are on bye.
- The No. 8 Haralson County Rebels blanked Banks County 44-0 to move to 5-0 while the Leopards, who compete in Region 8, fell to 1-5. AccessWDUN has details. The Rebels play another Region 8 team next week in Elbert County, while the Leopards have next week off before opening region play against Union County on Oct. 23.
- For the second consecutive week, the No. 10 Heard County Braves suffered a lopsided loss to an unranked team from 4A, this time to Central-Carrollton, 32-13. Last week, Cedartown beat them 48-14. The Braves (4-2) are off next week, then open Region 5 play by hosting Temple on Oct. 23.
- On bye: No. 4 Lovett, No. 5 Early County, No. 9 Thomasville
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