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| Makhi Climons (Cross Creek) |
South Carolina's teams won't finish their regular season until Valentine's Day weekend, and the next step in SC, as always, will be the state playoffs because South Carolina seeds its state tournament with regular season region standings, skipping region tournaments altogether.
But for the area's Georgia based teams, the regular season has ended, which means this week's region tournaments will decide which teams will advance to the GHSA state playoffs, what seed they will earn, and, unfortunately, which teams will see their season end over the next few days. Here are the details for the tournaments we will be watching closely:
Class 6A, Region 3
Grovetown's boys and girls teams captured the regular season championship, and with that the top seed and a bye into Thursday's semifinal round at this week's tournament at Evans. The second seed, which is
Evans on the boys side and
Heritage for the girls, will also bypass Tuesday's quarterfinal round. As is the case in all of the regions, the top four teams are guaranteed a spot in the state playoffs, but these four teams still have plenty of work to do this week because the region tournament champion and runner up will start their state playoff run at home, while the third and fourth place finishers will hit the road come playoff time.
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| Zy Wright (Grovetown) |
Region tournament brackets at Evans
Boys
Preview:
Grovetown (9-1 in region), Evans (8-2) and Heritage (4-6) can all be seen as equally likely to leave Evans with the tournament crown and the region's top seed in the state playoffs because every time those teams met head-to-head during the regular season the game was a toss up. But don't count out the bottom three teams because
Lakeside (3-7) and
Alcovy (4-6), which will play for a semifinal birth tonight, both have the talent to come out on top on any given night. And
Greenbrier (2-8) has already beaten Heritage one time this year, which should give the Wolfpack confidence going into today's quarterfinal matchup.
Girls
Preview:
Like his head coaching counterpart
Darren Douglas at the school on the boys side, Grovetown's
George Dukes claimed a regular season region championship in his first season at the helm. Grovetown's only loss in league play came against Greenbrier (6-4), which, like Grovetown, has a roster full of promising young players.
Class 4A, Region 3
Tournament host
Cross Creek will supply the field's top seed on both the boys and girls sides after an 8 game regular season schedule in which Cross Creek,
Burke County and
Baldwin all threatened to take the top seeds. On the boys side, the Razorbacks won the regular season championship outright by posting a 7-1 record, while the girls field actually ended in a three way tie that tilted in the Lady Razorbacks' favor after a coin flip tie breaker.
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| Cross Creek's Jenna Wilbon (50), Jordyn Dorsey (21) and Burke County's Tyasia Freeman (40) |
Class 4A, Region 3 tournament schedule
*Play-In Game
Feb 4th Tuesday @Thomson
6:00 ARC Vs. Thomson (Girls)
7:30 ARC Vs. Thomson (Boys)
Feb 6th Thursday @Cross Creek -
4:00PM - #3 Burke County Vs. #2 Baldwin (Girls)
5:30pm - #3 Burke County Vs. #2 Baldwin (Boys)
7:00PM - #4 (Thomson/ARC) Vs. Cross Creek (Girls)
8:30PM - #4 (Thomson/ARC) Vs. Cross Creek (Boys)
Feb 7th Friday @Cross Creek
4:00pm Consolation Girl's Game
5:30pm Consolation Boy's Game
7:00pm Championship Girl's Game
8:30pm Championship Boy's Game
Class 2A, Region 4
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| Rocky Drayton (Laney) |
On the boys side, Glenn Hills (14-2) and Butler (13-3) claimed the #1 and #2 seeds, and along with that two of the four semifinal spots in Thursday's round. Again, that means automatic state playoff tickets. But those same two teams finished last regular season in those same two positions a year ago, only to finish third (Butler) and fourth (Glenn Hills) last year before they both lost in the first round of the state playoffs. Six or seven different teams have the capability to get hot and win this tournament this week!
On the girls side, Laney (16-0) will once again be the favorites, but both Butler (12-4) and Josey (14-2), which took Laney to overtime in last season's region tournament championship game, have the ability to cause 2020 to be the first time Laney does not win a region tournament championship in what seems like, and probably is, more than a decade, if not two.
Class 1A, Region 7 (Girls)
Tuesday (2/4)
At Stratford Academy
#2E Lake Oconee Academy vs. #3W First Presbyterian Day, 4:00
#1W Stratford Academy vs. #4E Aquinas, 5:30
#2W Wilkinson County vs. #3E Hancock Central, 7:00
#1E GMC vs. #4W Mt. de Sales, 8:30
Friday (2/7)
At Hancock Central
#1W Stratford Academy/#4E Aquinas vs. #2E Lake Oconee Academy/#3W FPD, 4:00
#1E GMC/#4W Mt. de Sales vs. #2W Wilkinson County/#3E Hancock Central, 7:00
Saturday (2/8)
At Hancock Central
Consolation: 4:00
Championship: 7:00
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| Franquon Sherman (Lincoln County) |
Class 1A, Region 7 (Boys)
At Hancock Central
Wednesday (2/5)
#2W First Presbyterian Day vs. #3E Lincoln County, 4:00
#2E GMC vs. #3W Mt. de Sales, 5:30
#1W Wilkinson County vs. #4E Warren County, 7:00
#1E Hancock Central vs. #4W Twiggs County, 8:30
Friday (2/7)
#1W Wilkinson County/#4E Warren County vs. #2E GMC/#3W MDS, 5:30
#1E Hancock Central/#4W Twiggs vs. #2W FPD/#3E Lincoln County, 8:30
Saturday (2/8)
Consolation: 5:30
Championship: 8:30
