Class 5A’s highest-ranked teams – No. 1 Cartersville, No. 2 Woodward Academy and No. 3 Ware County – are out of the state football playoffs. So are Class 3A’s top two, No. 1 Monroe Area and No. 2 Oconee County, along with No. 2 North Cobb of Class 7A.
Class 5A’s elite suffered the heaviest damages Friday night, although not without warning, given their rude second-round draws.
No. 4 Warner Robins, for one, was no ordinary spoiler. The defending 5A champions beat Cartersville, winning 24-17 in a rematch of their 2020 title game. Unlike that original, when Warner Robins won 62-28, this one came down to a Demons goal-line stand in the final seconds.
No. 9 Blessed Trinity eliminated Woodward Academy 28-13, ending the War Eagles’ season at 11-1. Blessed Trinity, the preseason No. 1 team, was 6-4 in the regular season, losing only against top-10 teams, Cartersville being one.
No. 6 Calhoun, another traditional power laying low, outlasted Ware County 49-42. Calhoun was the Region 7 runner-up to Cartersville, while Ware County was the champion of Warner Robins’ Region 1. The net effect Friday was that each region’s runner-up eliminated the other’s champion.
North Cobb, Monroe Area and Oconee County were perhaps more surprising with their exits, but their opponents were no lightweights, either.
No. 10 Roswell took out North Cobb 46-43. North Cobb was ranked No. 2 most of the season and possessed what many believed was its most talented team in history. But Roswell is an offensive powerhouse and surpassed 40 points for the eight time this season.
In Class 3A, Crisp County and Peach County lost three games apiece against hard regular-season schedules and found themselves unusually unranked entering the playoffs. The slight must’ve roused the Region 2 rivals because Peach County beat No. 1 Monroe Area 24-21 while Crisp County beat No. 2 Oconee County 26-10.
Monroe Area (11-1) had risen to its first-ever No. 1 ranking not long after beating preseason No. 1 Jefferson, and Oconee County was the reigning state runner-up whose only loss had been to Monroe Area in Region 8.
Now, Peach County is in the quarterfinals for the sixth consecutive season, and Crisp County is back for the third consecutive time. One or the other was a state finalist in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Two other top-four teams lost Friday.
No. 7 Callaway, the defending Class 2A champion, beat No. 3 Bleckley County 35-14. Dacula, unranked in Class 6A, beat previously undefeated No. 4 Brunswick 29-21.
Two other unranked teams beat top-10 opponents. In 4A, Dougherty beat No. 9 Riverdale 7-0 and made the quarterfinals for the first time since 2005. In Class A Public, Turner County beat No. 6 Bowdon 46-13.
The quarterfinals are next weekend.
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