Region play begins in Class 5A this week when regions 1 and 6 begin the league portion of their schedules in Week 4 of the high school football season.
Region 6 action kicks off Friday night with Sprayberry at Pope, Woodstock at River Ridge, Lassiter at Creekside and Riverwood at Sequoyah.
Three of the eight-team region’s teams are undefeated and three others have winning records, but only one is ranked in the top 10 and none has established itself as a clear front-runner. The top four teams in the computer Maxwell Ratings are rated within nine points of each other. By comparison, Brunswick is rated by Maxwell as 10 points better than the next-best team in Region 1.
That should make for interesting races for the region championship and playoff berths.
Here’s a closer look at the teams in Region 6, listed in the order of their position in the Maxwell Ratings.
*Sequoyah (3-0): The Chiefs moved into the rankings this week for the first time since 2018 after a 3-0 start that includes victories over Class 6A Denmark and Cherokee and Class 4A Kell by an average of 4.7 points. Sequoyah reached the playoffs eight of the past 12 seasons but have not won a region championship since 2003. The Chiefs reached the second round last year and finished 8-4.
*Creekview (2-1): The Grizzles were Maxwell’s preseason favorites, slightly ahead of Sequoyah, and they got the season started off right with a big win over Calhoun, but they dropped after a 39-0 loss to Cambridge last week. Creekview is likely to start strong in region play, facing the three lowest-rated teams in the first three games, so their fate will be determined in the final month of the season.
*River Ridge (2-1): The Knights opened the season with a 21-7 loss to Cherokee but bounced back with big wins against Denmark and Allatoona. River Ridge had the best season in its 16-year history in 2020, winning a school-record 11 games and reaching the state quarterfinals. The Knights were 17-15 the past three seasons, reaching the playoffs the past two but losing in the first round each time.
*Sprayberry (3-0): The Yellow Jackets are 3-0 for the second time since 2016, beating Alexander, Etowah and Kennesaw Mountain by a combined score 97-20. Sprayberry finished fourth last season in a region that included Roswell and Blessed Trinity and earned its fourth playoff berth in five seasons. DB Mark Manfred was the region’s only player on GHSF Daily’s preseason all-state team.
*Pope (1-2): The Greyhounds averaged 31 points in their first three games but won only once (41-27 over Dunwoody), as they have given up 42 per game. Last week, they put up their highest point total in four years but lost to Cherokee 65-42. John Stuetzer (committed to Florida State for baseball) had 18 catches for 512 yards in the past two games. Pope’s last playoff berth came in 2021.
*Woodstock (3-0): The Wolverines have been one of the bigger surprises in 5A, opening with victories over Etowah, Woodland-Cartersville and North Springs after going 2-28 the past three seasons. The three wins came against the second-weakest schedule in the region, according to Maxwell, although they won each handily. The competition gets a lot tougher this week against River Ridge.
*Lassiter (2-1): Lassiter has defeated Midtown (35-30) and Northview (42-0) to already surpass the win total of last year’s 1-9 team, and their 91 points are just 33 short of the 2023 team’s season total. The Trojans have played the weakest schedule in the region, according to Maxwell, and we’ll learn more about them this week against Creekview. Lassiter’s last playoff berth came in 2016.
*Riverwood (0-3): The Raiders had the best run in school history from 2018 to 2021 under coach Robert Edwards, going 32-11 with three playoff appearances, but have struggled to find their footing in the years since. They are 5-19 since the start of 2022, including 0-3 this year with losses to Centennial, Chattahoochee and South Forsyth. And it won’t be easy starting league play against Sequoyah.
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