At this point in the season, all of the games are important. But this week, there are some region games that can be seen as de facto region title games. We will preview a a handful of these games this week in our Eight Greats Around the State, our weekly Georgia High School Football previews. This is part two and features four interesting matchups in regions play.
First up, Calhoun will host Blessed Trinity. Blessed Trinity hasn’t played a game in a month. Will they be rusty or rested? There’s still a lot of work to do, but the winner of this game just might earn themselves a home playoff game. At the other end of the state, down in Waycross, the Ware County Gators host the Coffee Trojans. Tommy Castellanos has been outstanding for the Gators this season, but can he duplicate his success against a stingy Coffee defense.
Down in Rochelle, the Wilcox County Patriots will host the Dublin Fighting Irish. Can Martez Thrower and the Patriots defense slow down the vaunted Dublin Wing-T? Our Final game features in our opinion the defect Region 8 A-Private title game between Prince Avenue Christian and Athens Academy. Athens Academy has won the last four in the series. Can Brock Vandagriff and the Wolverines stop the series skid this week?
As always, thanks for reading. Please feel free to comment and share. Best of luck to all of the teams competing on Friday night.
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The Skinny
The Calhoun Yellow Jackets have won four straight games entering play this week. The offense has been humming along to the tune of 36.5 points per game. Quarterback Christian Lewis was the Class 5A passing leader entering last Friday’s games. On the season he has thrown for over 1,200 yards. Meanwhile Jerrian Hames also entered last week’s contest as the Class 5A rushing leader and has tallied 795 yards on the ground this season. And don’t forget about the Class 5A receiving leader, Cole Speer (575 yards entering last weeks game.) The Yellow Jackets defense is allowing 16.6 points per game.
It’s hard to believe that the Blessed Trinity Titans have not played a game in almost a month. The Titans has impressive wins over ELCA and Kell. Now they begin a daunting two-week gauntlet in Region 7-5A. Blessed Trinity’s super sophomore Justice Haynes has rushed for 357 yards and 5-TDs and he’s also thrown a TD pass. Meanwhile, J.C. French has been near perfect on the season, completing 92.8% of his passes for 354 yards in two games. David Coltrane has been one of the top receivers for the Titans. Ryan Dupont leads the Blessed Trinity in total tackles and we can’t forget about safety Jackson Hamilton who will be crucial in runs support this week. The defense is allowing 23 points per game in their two contests. We do wonder if there will be any rust for this Blessed Trinity football team. If Calhoun is going to win, they’ll need to jump out early. This game should have lots of fireworks. We like Blessed Trinity to find their stride and outscore Calhoun by a touchdown in a high scoring affair.
The Skinny
The Ware County Gators find themselves at 5-0 for the first time since 2015. The Gators have been led by one of the most explosive players in Class 5A, quarterback Tommy Castellanos. The junior signal caller has thrown for 1,283 yards and 12-TDs and also rushed for 551 yards and 10-TDs. He’s averaging 7.5 yards per carry. Nine different receivers have caught passes for Ware County this season, including team leaders Dakari Coachman (13 receptions 146 yards, 2-TDs), Raiden Kennedy ( 9 receptions, 254 yards, 4-TDs), Jerry Wilkins (11 receptions, 253 yards, 2-TDs) and James Daniels (14 receptions, 193 yards, 1-TD). The Gators defense is allowing 19.6 points per game.
The Coffee Trojans have won three consecutive games coming into region play. Senior quarterback A.J. Wilkerson has thrown for 704 yards and 10-TDs while A.J. Franklin has rushed for 326 yards and 5-TDs. Maurice Turner continues to lead the team in receiving with 20 receptions for 429 yards and 3-TDs. Kenneth Davis has also caught 10 passes for 257 yards. Junior linebacker Anthony Gaskin leads the defense with 54 total tackles. Speaking of defense, Coffee’s has been pretty good. They’ve got two shutouts to their credit and are allowing 8.8 points per game. A loss here for either team won’t eliminate them from post season play, but it might put them behind the 8-ball with region foes like Warner Robins and Veterans still on tap. Tommy Castellanos has been hard to contain this season. We think he has another big game, but expect the game to be close. Gators by 5.
The Skinny
If the Wilcox County Patriots are going to pick up their first region tittle in 8 years, they’ll have to find a way to defeat last year’s Class 2-A state champ. This game looks to have all the makings of a region title game. Wilcox County is averaging 31.6 points per game this season. Last week, Martez Thrower showed his versatility making plays on both sides of the ball, scoring two touchdowns as a running back and recording a sack on defense.
After a Week-1 setback, the Dublin Fighting Irish looked to have picked up right where they left off last season. There were many questions marks with the Irish graduating a lot of their production, but they’ve seemed to settle in five weeks into the season. Dublin has a mix of power and speed in the backfield. J.T. Wright is explosive and has the speed to run away from defenders while Josh Isaac is a bruising fullback and quarterback Markelle Mitchell is a tough runner and also does enough throwing the ball to keep teams honest. The Irish are averaging 46.2 points per game, while the defense is allowing 11.8 points per game. That includes two shutouts in their last three games. We think Wilcox County is pretty good, but we aren’t sure they can keep up with Dublin this week. We like the Fighting Irish by 13.
The Skinny
The Prince Avenue Christian Wolverines will face another big test this week as they start region play. If you don’t know by now, the Wolverines are led by UGA commit, Brock Vandagriff. The senior has thrown for 1,674 yards and 19-TDs. He’s also second on the team in rushing with 272 yards and 8-TDs. Landon Owens leads the way on the ground with 444 yards and 6-TDs. Owens, Logan Johnson and Zac Dyer have combined to haul in 77 catches for 1,275 yards and 16-TDs. The Wolverines are averaging 49.3 points per game while the defense is allowing 18.3 points per game. Davis Ridings leads the team in total tackles with 54. The Wolverines secondary has intercepted 10 passes on the season.
Athens Academy has owned this series as of late, winning the last four meetings. The Spartans have a pretty good quarterback themselves in senior Palmer Bush. Bush threw two TD passes last week on their way to victory. Athens Academy also got three touchdowns on the ground from Tre Hawkins. We can’t forget about the most dangerous playmaker for the Spartans, Deion Colzie. While all of this preview has been about the offense and their 30 points per game, don’t forget the defense pitched their first shutout last week and are only allowing 8.3 points per game. Something has to give in this one. We believe this will be much closer than last year’s contest. We like the Wolverines on the arm of Vandagriff by a 6 at home.