Playoffs kick off locally this week
The GHSA soccer playoffs kick off this week and Gordon County will be right in the middle of the action with the three high schools boys’ teams representing three different classifications.
“The playoffs are always an exciting time and being part of them never gets old, “Gordon Central head coach Matt Wiley said. “I know my boys are very excited about it and after we got so close (to the state championship game) last year, we’re looking forward to seeing how far we can go this year.”
And it would seem that those sentiments could pretty much be echoed by the coaches at all three schools.
GORDON CENTRAL
The Warriors, who are the secondranked team in the state, head into the postseason looking for one thing — a 2A state championship.
With a senior—oriented team that has a lot of experience and is one of the most talented around, the blueand-silver reached the state semifinals last year before losing to Pace Academy, 3-0.
Now that solid core of players is a year older and wiser and hoping that will get them experience and playoff savvy to the finish line.
They go into their opening-round match against Haralson County this week at Ratner Stadium having been off for two weeks, but this has been a season where they’ve had a couple of extended stretches between games so overcoming long layoffs has not been an issue.
They had their regular season ending match against Calhoun Tuesday night called off because of the rain, but the 7-2A Region Champs are ready to start chasing that title they’ve been thinking about since it eluded them last year.
Haralson County comes into game against the Warriors winless at 0-15-1 on the year but the Rebels are in Region 5-2A, which has just four teams so even though they went 0-5 in league play, they are the four seed from their league.
The Rebels have been outscored 123-4 this year and the closest they came to winning was a scoreless tie with Hiram before they lost on penalty kicks in four overtimes to the Hornets.
Gordon Central on the other hand has played like they are a mission with their only loss a 4-2 setback to Northwest Whitfield County in a game that was the team’s third in four days.
They gave outscored their opposition by a resounding 70-13 score this year and it could have been much worse for those foes had Wylie not called off the dogs in a lot of different instances when his team was winning big.
Gordon Central is 12-2 overall and went 10-0 in region play.
CALHOUN
Before the season began, Yellow Jacket head coach Tino Hernandez wanted to guide the team back into the 5A playoffs after they didn’t make it last year.
And by winning three of their first four Region 7-5A matches, they not only earned that, they also had a chance to have a first-round home playoff game, but came up short on that goal when they dropped a tough 3-0 decision to Cartersville in their final league outing.
But now they have a chance to reach another goal and they couldn’t be more excited about it because winning a playoff game and even making a deep run is what Hernandez’s young team is trying to do over the next couple of weeks.
They open the postseason 8 p.m. Wednesday night in John’s Creek as the third seed out of Region 7-5A and play Northview, which was the second seed in Region 5.
The Yellow Jackets were to finish the regular season Friday night when they went to LaGrange, which is another tough team that Hernandez hooked his team up with on the backend of the schedule to get them ready for what lies ahead. (Details of that game were not available at press time).
While a lot of teams took some time or games off because last week was spring break for them and the playoffs are here, Calhoun was scheduled to play twice but their Tuesday night home match with Gordon Central was called off due to rain.
Coach Hernandez has wanted his team to face tough competition and over the last two weeks, that is exactly what they have done to get themselves ready for this point.
They have played the topranked 4A team in Columbus, a top 2A contender in Coosa, a tough Region mate in Cartersville, and the 4A defending state champ Southeast Whitfield County, against whom they scored twice.
Had their game with Gordon Central been played, the competition they met to prepare for the postseason would have been that much stronger. But LaGrange owned a 12-3-1 record coming into Friday night’s game with Calhoun, so the Yellow Jackets have pretty much
only faced playoff powers for about the last month.
It would seem this firstround playoff game could be a low-scoring affair because Northview, which is 8-7-1 overall, has scored 40 goals this year but 30 of those came in three games as they had 11 against Southwest Dekalb, nine against Stone Mountain, and 11 against Lithonia. In their other 13 games, they have scored just 10 goals combined.
The winner of the Calhoun-Northview game will meet the winner of the Coffee-Woodward Academy game next week in the second round.
Calhoun is 4-10-1 this year.
SONORAVILLE
In what has to be one of the finest turnarounds in the state, the Phoenix, led by head coach Marcus Palazzolo, start their 3A playoff journey 8 p.m. Wednesday night at East Jackson High School.
Just one year ago, the Phoenix were 1-15 and 1-7 in Region 6-3A, basically putting them near the bottom of a league that would eventually reveal itself to have the 3A state champion in Coahulla Creek.
But this year they have won eight games, including five in the league, and went 8-7-1 and now they are the third seed out of Region 6, going 5-3 against the same folks they played last year.
And they have flipped the switch on both sides of the ball, allowing 44 goals after giving up nearly 100 last year and they have scored 49 times after putting the ball in the back of the net only 11 times in 2021.
Senor Uriel Perez and freshmen Mateo Trujillo have supplied a lot of the firepower this year, with each having scored 16 goals or an average of 1 per game.
Junior foreign exchange student Ivan Agua has added three more goals.
Sonoraville finished behind North Murray and Coahulla Creek in the Region 6-3A standings and ahead of Murray County. But North Murray and Murray County played each other Friday night in the final regular-season game of the year. And while Murray County, with a win, would finish 5-3 just like the Phoenix, the Firebirds would still have the higher seed because they defeated the Indians.
A Murray County victory would also mean that no team in the region went undefeated because North Murray came into that game with a 7-0 record.
Sonoraville beat Lafayette, Adairsville, Rockmart, Murray County, and Ringgold this year in region play after defeating only Rockmart last year.
The winner of the Sonoraville-East Jackson game will play the winner of the Hephzibah-Region 2-3A champ in the second round next week.