A preview of this Friday's key games, plus full highlights from Burke County, Baldwin, Grovetown, and North Augusta's wins Friday

Burke County, Baldwin, Aquinas, Lakeside and Grovetown all match up with fellow unbeaten teams Friday.

Burke County and Baldwin have sprinted forward to be the only two class 4A, region 3 teams to post wins after what proved to be a very important first two weeks of league play. The 9th ranked Bears (6-2, 2-0) will travel to Milledgeville to take on the Braves (3-5, 2-0) this Friday in a matchup that may decide the region's champion. Burke County will enter the game on a 6 game winning streak, with the two most recent victories being dominant outings against region opponents Cross Creek (41-7) two weeks ago, and Richmond in a 32-7 rout last Friday in Waynesboro.



Baldwin has taken a more adventurous path to this point, having earned their two league wins on the road, first at Richmond (28-21 in overtime), and next at Thomson (27-6) Friday:

Lakeside, Grovetown, Greenbrier, and Evans all still have a chance

Our area's four representatives in class 6A, region 3 will face each other Friday when Lakeside (4-2, 2-0) invades Grovetown's (3-4, 2-0) turf, and Evans (1-6, 1-1) visits Greenbrier (1-6, 1-1). The winner of the Grovetown-Lakeside game will take the inside track towards gaining this region's top state playoff seed with two league games remaining.

Lakeside's complete body of work this season makes the Panthers the favorite in this four team race. Junior quarterback Jaden Taylor has quietly put together as good of a season as just about any player in the area.



His success running and throwing the ball should be a compelling story to follow when his Panthers are confronted with Grovetown's well regarded defense, which has given up only 7 points in two weeks of region play. 

The Warriors' offense has only posted 32 points combined in those outings, but one touchdown and a pair of field goals turned out to be enough in last Friday's 14-7 road win over Greenbrier last Friday.

Aquinas, still unbeaten, will face its stiffest test yet

The area's only remaining undefeated team, Aquinas (7-0), has taken a path that gets more difficult each week. First the Irish topped rival Lincoln County by a touchdown at home in the first week of region play. Two weeks later a 47-7 win at Washington-Wilkes proved to be much more convincing than anybody expected. Then the Irish turned back a surging Hancock Central squad that took a 8-3 lead into halftime last Friday before Aquinas came back to win 16-8.

This Friday will bring the most difficult test to date for Aquinas when the Irish will travel to Greene County (5-2, 4-0) to face another team that has yet to lose in the region. It is only right that a possible unbeaten regular season run would include such a stiff test.

North Augusta's comeback win Friday made that region's picture absolutely unclear

While the coming Friday's matchups discussed above all should provide clarity to those region's races, the picture in South Carolina's class 4A, region 5 still seems perfectly muddy. With North Augusta, South Aiken, Brookland-Cayce, and Airport all currently holding 2-1 league records, the most reasonable prediction may be that North Augusta, South Aiken, and Brookland-Cayce will finish the 5 game region slate in two weeks tied at the top of the standings.

But if there is one thing we should have learned by now, it is that comebacks are the rule on Fridays in this region. Brookland-Cayce started that trend three weeks ago by ending their region opener at North Augusta with a 27-0 run to gain a 41-34 road win. South Aiken returned the favor a week later with a comeback win over Brookland-Cayce. And to close the loop, North Augusta finished Friday's game at South Aiken with 27 unanswered points of its own in a 34-24 comeback win (highlights above) on the road.