The Week 8 schedule features three Thursday night matchups, 23 Friday night contests and one Saturday showdown. There are six teams that are observing bye weeks (Bainbridge, LaGrange, Benedictine, Riverdale, Hapeville Charter and Madison County. Additionally, Druid Hills and top-ranked Marist will also be off this week following Druid Hills decision to cancel the remainder of its season this week. Today’s blog will give an overview of the Week 8 schedule and will highlight some of the top matchups on the slate.
In Region 1, Dougherty and No. 7 Bainbridge will faceoff on Thursday, while Cairo plays Monroe and Westover takes on Thomas County Central on Friday. Bainbridge is coming off a 21-0 win over Cairo and Westover is looking to shake off its 14-8 loss to Dougherty. Thomas County Central and Westover each carry a 1-0 Region record into their matchup, while Cairo and Monroe are both 0-1. Monroe’s region loss came last week with Thomas County Central’s 35-8 victory. The last time Cairo and Monroe played was the 2015 season and Monroe scored a 16-14 victory. The win marked the first time in the school’s 26 all-time meetings that the Tornadoes recorded consecutive wins over the Syrupmakers.
Region 2 gets underway on Thursday with Hardaway and Kendrick. Hardaway carries a 3-0 region record into the matchup and Kendrick is 0-4 in conference play. On Friday, No. 3 Carver-Columbus (4-0, 4-0) will face Jordan (2-3, 2-2). Carver-Columbus enters the matchup averaging 49.25 ppg on offense while surrendering just 8.25 ppg defensively. Troup, which carries a 3-1 region record will face Shaw (1-4, 1-2) with an opportunity to move closer to securing a playoff berth. Also, Columbus (1-5, 1-3) will take on Spencer (0-6, 0-4).
Region 3 will continue its district-only schedule with three cross-classification matchups. No. 8 Islands will take on Beach, Jenkins will play Groves and New Hampstead will face Savannah. Islands and New Hampstead both carry 3-0 records and Jenkins is 1-2 following last week’s 14-6 loss to Windsor Forest.
Baldwin earned a spot in the polls this past week at No. 10 and will carry its 2-0 overall and region record into its showdown with West Laurens—which sits at 3-2 overall and a perfect 2-0 in region play. Baldwin scored a 52-12 win over Rutland this past weekend and West Laurens posted and impressive 31-0 win over Howard. Rutland will face Spalding on Thursday with both teams carrying identical 0-2 region marks. Howard and Westside-Macon will also be matched up with 0-1 region records, while Perry will take on Class 7A Tift County after scoring a 42-11 win over Spalding this past week.
Region 5 will stage a pair of region matchups and two cross-classification matchups. The region games will feature Fayette County (4-1, 2-0) vs. McDonough (1-4, 1-1) and Hampton (1-5, 0-2) vs. Mt. Zion-Jonesboro (0-4, 0-1). As for the non-region games, Luella (5-1, 3-0) will take on Northside-Warner Robins and North Clayton (0-6, 0-3) will look for its first win of the season against Duluth.
As previously mentioned, Druid Hills and Marist has been cancelled after the Red Devils' decision to cancel the remainder of their season due to ‘low participation numbers’. Druid Hills finished the season 0-3 and was outscored a combined 168-0. Due to these developments, Week 8 will see just two matchups played in Region 6. Arabia Mountain (1-2, 1-1) will square off with Mays (3-3, 1-1) and Miller Grove (1-2) will take on No. 4 ranked Stephenson (2-0, 1-0).
The big story in Region 7 last week was Central-Carroll scoring a huge 54-35 win over Northwest Whitfield to open region play. Now, the Lions will take on Heritage-Catoosa, which is coming off its 21-14 loss to Ridgeland. As for Northwest Whitfield, the Bruins will take on another tough opponent this week in Cedartown. The Bulldogs were able to defeat Pickens 52-21 in last week’s opener. Southeast Whitfield, which is a member of the region, but does not compete in a conference schedule takes on Class 3A North Murray on Saturday.
Madison County is the lone Region 8 team off this week and there will be three pivotal region games played on Friday. East Hall will open up its region schedule against Chestatee, which fell this past week to North Oconee 44-0. North Oconee will match up against No. 6 ranked Flowery Branch, which an opportunity to be the first team in the region to improve to 3-0. Finally, undefeated and No. 2 ranked Jefferson will take on Cedar Shoals, which was able to defeat Madison County this past Friday 23-7.
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