Published: November 19, 2008 09:29 pm            

Column: Region 7-4A teams to face tougher tests

The longer this football season goes on, the less sense Region 7-4A makes. While our local teams found themselves at home for the postseason this year, three of the four teams that did make the Class 4A state playoffs won last week. Hillgrove (8-3) is at Tucker, Sequoyah (10-1) is at Marist and Rome (9-2) is at Sandy Creek for Friday’s second round.

Guess who’s missing from the list?

Sprayberry, the surprise region champion — well, I’m guessing that it surprised

a lot of people when the Yellow Jackets routed Rome 27-6 for the title on Nov. 14, a game that drew even perhaps more attention for the fact that no referees were assigned — now done for the year after falling 11-8 to Cedar Shoals, Region 8’s No. 4 seed.

Despite the size of the region this year — if you’re playing percentages, expanding from eight to 13 teams should at least give a minor bump to the talent level for any league — I wouldn’t have expected three of four to move on, and certainly not for those three to not include a region champ.

The regular season’s final week, when Hillgrove beat Dalton and Hiram gave Sequoyah a good fight in the region playoffs, was bizarre on its own. And soon after, it filtered out that coaches from the region’s southern half, Division “B,” were defensive about what they thought was an insult to their collective talent — the preseason push from Division “B” coaches to structure qualifying for the postseason so that one division might have up to three teams advance.

While those coaches might have felt vindicated by the region playoffs, they can’t really blame folks for thinking Division “A” would have at least a shade more talent.

It did have three teams that qualified for state in 2007 (Dalton, Northwest Whitfield, Rome) compared to only one (Sprayberry) in Division “B.” It did have a significant edge in terms of established programs, with Division “B” stocked with schools opened in the past few years. And based on region crossover games early in the season, all of that held up to the tune of Division “A” going 9-2 against “B” — with one of B’s victories a one-touchdown job by Hiram over Northwest in a game the Bruins dominated statistically.

That’s all in the past now, but I point it out to show what kind of evolution the region has undergone in short order. And if last week is any indication, the surprises might not quite be done.

But while the first-round results were nice for Region 7, this week’s matchups will be an even tougher test. Marist (10-1) and Tucker (10-1) are the champion and runner-up, respectively, from the always-tough, Atlanta-area Region 6; Region 5 champ Sandy Creek is one of only two remaining undefeated teams in Class 4A. (Westside-Macon’s the other.)

If any of 7-4A’s remaining representatives press on, it would be a big deal for a region that has had just five teams make it to the quarterfinals since 2002. Of those five appearances, all but one — Dalton in 2006 — was made by Rome.

• The sudden stop of the Georgia High School Association football season locally has made for a couple mostly quiet weeks for the area’s prep sports scene. Still, Christian Heritage kept the gridiron noisy with two postseason victories as it claimed the school’s first football championship by winning the Georgia Football League last week.

No one’s saying the GFL is the GHSA; it isn’t even the Georgia Independent Schools Association — where Christian Heritage in its second year of competing in all other sports — in terms of number or competition. But it’s the league that has fit best for the Lions as they made their first steps into football, easily the hardest of high school sports to start from the ground up, and winning it shows progress has been made in four short years of varsity ball.

Last off the football field, the Lions were also first onto the basketball court, going 2-1 last week at an early-season round-robin event in the Atlanta area.

Everyone else in the area hits the hardwood over the course of the next week or so for their season openers.

Murray County’s boys and girls host Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe on Friday at 6 p.m.. Northwest and Southeast will tip off as part of Southeast’s Thanksgiving tournament next week — the Raiders play Polk County, Tenn., at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, while the Lady Raiders face Rockmart at 4 p.m. Wednesday; the Bruins take on Rockmart at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday and the Lady Bruins get started at 6 p.m. Tuesday against Polk County. Dalton’s Lady Catamounts open at 8 p.m. local time next Friday vs. Mt. Zion, Ala., in the Martin Methodist Classic in Pulaski, Tenn. The Cats open at 2:30 p.m. next Saturday vs. Paideia in Jonesboro.

The wrestling mats are rolling out, too. Friday’s the first day for GHSA teams to compete, and three of the four local programs will be doing so on Saturday — Northwest heads to Central Gwinnett for the Black Knight Duals, while Murray County and Southeast go north for the Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe Duals.

Dalton won’t be too far behind, heading to Paulding County for a double dual with the host Patriots and Marietta at 5:30 p.m. Dec. 3; the Cats’ own Carpet Classic tournament, expected to field about 20 teams this year, will be held two days later.

• Rome’s Shorter College and Williamsburg, Ky.’s University of the Cumberlands will meet Saturday in the first round of the NAIA National Football Championship playoffs. It’s the first postseason appearance for the Shorter Hawks, who didn’t have a football team four years ago.

Why do I mention this? Well, both schools have a few names you might remember from Friday nights over the past few seasons. Local players listed on Shorter’s roster this year are Spencer Bragg (Northwest), Tommy Goforth (Murray County), David Hall (Dalton), Jeremy Norman (Murray County) and Blake Thomas (Southeast). Cumberlands has a couple as well in Dakota Beavers (Northwest) and Caleb Pratt (Southeast).

        

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