Region 6-AAAA could go down to wire again
Say this for football in Georgia Region 6-AAAA: There’s never a need to force-feed drama to keep fans interested late in the season.
The 2016 season was the third consecutive year the region (it was 7-AAAA two years ago) has gone down to at least the final Friday of the regular season before its playoff teams were finalized.
On the heels of backto-back years in which Monday mini-games were needed to break ties, there was a three-way tie for first place heading into the final Friday night last season before Heritage spoiled the drama by winning at Pickens.
“It’s going to be tough again,” said Ridgeland coach Wesley Tankersley, whose team tied with Northwest Whitfield with one loss but earned the No. 1 seed a year ago after winning the regular-season matchup. “Our region has a lot of parity, and from one to seven it’s a good group of teams that are well coached. We all have quite a few players back, so it should be fun.”
There’s plenty of offense back on last year’s top four teams, but each has at least one big question mark. Ridgeland’s wing-T attack features hard-running fullback Jalyn Shelton, wingback Markeith Montgomery and jet-quick receiver Stephon Moore, but the Panthers are inexperienced up front.
Northwest returns allstar
quarterback Luke Shiflett and running back Dominique Sistrunk, but the Bruins are trotting out an entirely new receivers group. Heritage has a solid line and two receivers, Luke Grant and Ryan Carter, who can stretch the field, yet the Generals have to replace three-year quarterback Corbee Wilson. Pickens returns quarterback Jacob Brumby but lost 1,000-yard rusher Chris Pittman.
Still, there should be points aplenty again in 2017.
“The thing about our region is that it’s so offensive-heavy,” Southeast Whitfield coach Sean Gray said. “Football has changed so much, as we all know. I see our region being similar to last year, with Ridgeland, Northwest and Heritage being loaded and the rest of us fighting for fourth.”
Another coach sees it as even closer (alert: more drama ahead).
“I would not be surprised to see the region champion have one loss again and for the second through fourth seeds have at least two losses, because there are a lot of people that can beat a lot of people,” Northwest coach Josh Robinson said. “Ever who makes tackles this year will win the region championship. There are so many good offenses and individual offensive players that you better tackle.”