Road trip: Four local high schools travel to open the playoffs – Daily Citizen
After the dust settled on the 10-game high school football regular season in Georgia, four of the seven teams based in Whitfield and Murray counties still have football left to play.
Coahulla Creek, Dalton, North Murray and Christian Heritage School all extended their season by at least one game, and all will have to win on the road to get another opportunity to suit up. Northwest Whitfield, Southeast Whitfield and Murray County are looking to next season.
Thanks to a shortage of officials, a pair of those playoff teams will play on Saturday, with the other two taking the field tonight.
North Murray and Christian Heritage play tonight, while Coahulla Creek and Dalton will wait until Saturday to get started.
Coahulla Creek makes school’s first playoff appearance against Sandy Creek
The Coahulla Creek Colts fought to a school-record seven wins this season to earn the first winning season and playoff appearance in Coahulla Creek’s 11-year football history.
The reward for the Colts? A trip to Tyrone to play the third-ranked team in the state in Class 3A in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s rankings.
Coahulla Creek (7-3) will play Sandy Creek (8-2) Saturday night at 7:30 in the first round of the Class 3A playoffs.
Sandy Creek powered its way to its 8-2 record in a loaded Region 5-3A. The Patriots beat the state’s fourth-ranked team, Carver, 22-12 for the second seed in the region but finished behind Cedar Grove, the No. 1 team in 3A.
The only other loss for Sandy Creek came against Class 7A playoff team East Coweta, a 23-20 loss in overtime, and the Patriots have downed Class 7A Collins Hill (33-17) and Class 6A’s Alexander (48-14) and Newnan (38-27) this season.
The Colts played against a higher classification team once this year, dropping 35-31 to 4A Northwest Whitfield.
The game features teams that get more offense through the air than on the ground. Coahulla Creek quarterback Kace Kinnamon is one of the most prolific passers in Class 3A, with 2,182 passing yards and 20 touchdowns — with 802 of those yards and 12 of the touchdowns going to receiver Manny Dominguez.
Sandy Creek’s Geimere Latimer isn’t far behind Kinnamon. He’s led the Patriots with 1,761 yards and 24 touchdowns in the regular season. The Colts will also have to deal with the balanced run game of Sandy Creek, something that gave Coahulla Creek a lot of trouble in the last game of the regular season against Adairsville. The Colts allowed more than 500 yards rushing in that one.
If the Colts pull the upset, they’ll play the winner of a first-round game between Wesleyan and Stephens County.
Dalton makes playoff return at Loganville
After a pair of losing seasons, the Dalton Catamounts are back in the playoffs.
Second-year head coach Kit Carpenter and the running of senior Tyson Greenwade have powered Dalton into the Class 5A playoffs, but two losses to end the season to the two region powers, Calhoun and Cartersville, forced the Catamounts to hit the road for round one.
Dalton (5-5) travels to Region 8-5A’s second-seeded team, Loganville (9-1), for the Saturday night showdown. Kickoff is set for 6.
Loganville is the 10th-ranked team by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The good news for the unranked Catamounts? They have plenty of experience against tough competition this season.
The Region 7-5A opponents, Cartersville and Calhoun, are ranked third and ninth, respectively. Dalton gave both teams a tough game before falling 28-13 to Calhoun and 39-14 to Cartersville. Dalton also played Class 4A’s No. 1 team, Cedartown, and lost 43-9.
Loganville’s only game against a currently-ranked team in 5A was a 42-6 loss to fourth-ranked Jefferson, the champ from Loganville’s Region 8.
The Catamounts will need a strong game from Greenwade, who had 1,839 rushing yards in nine games played this season, to have an opportunity at pulling the upset. Dalton focuses on the ground game, but sophomore quarterback Ethan Long has also made some plays to provide a little more balance for the Cats since he took over as the full-time starter midway through the season.
Loganville has a star rusher of its own in Solomon Leslie, who managed 1,382 yards and 15 scores during the regular season. Dalton’s rushing defense has struggled of late, too, giving up 783 rushing yards in Dalton’s last two games.
The winner of Saturday’s game will play the victor of a first-round game between Creekside and Greater Atlanta Christian.
North Murray continues playoff streak with game at Roswell’s Fellowship Christian
With Northwest Whitfield falling short of the playoffs this season, North Murray’s string of seven consecutive playoff appearances is now the longest of any team in Whitfield and Murray counties.
But the Mountaineers have hit a wall in first-round road games since the school’s run to the quarterfinals in 2019.
This year’s first-round road hurdle? Roswell’s Fellowship Christian, the Region 8-2A champion. The Class 2A opening-round game is at 7:30 tonight.
North Murray (6-4) isn’t the typical fourth-seeded team from a region — the Mountaineers tied for second but were sent down to fourth because of a three-way tiebreaker — but the ‘Neers still have to travel to face a region champ.
Fellowship (7-3) was a playoff mainstay in the old Class A Private, reaching the state semifinals last year, but the end of the public-private split sent Fellowship into Class 2A this season.
The Paladins went through Region 8 undefeated at 5-0, but finished 2-3 outside of the region, including losses to a trio of Class A Division I schools in Mount Pisgah Christian (21-18), St. Francis (35-28) and Rabun County (21-16).
North Murray’s been tested by a few larger schools, including Class 5A Dalton and 4A’s Northwest Whitfield, both losses for the Mountaineers. Dalton downed North Murray 49-27 and Northwest shut down the Mountaineers 35-14.
The passing game, led by quarterback Seth Griffin and two 900-yard receivers, Jadyn Rice and Judson Petty, makes the Mountaineers offense go, but the ‘Neers have found more of a running game late, led by the versatile Petty. Petty scored three rushing touchdowns against Rockmart in the regular season finale.
What North Murray needs against a Fellowship Christian offense that has averaged 37.4 points per game against region teams is for the defense to step up. North Murray gave up 66-plus points twice in the last three games of the regular season: 66 against Rockmart and 68 against Fannin County.
Tonight’s winner will play either Mount Paran Christian or Eagles Landing Christian in the second round.
Christian Heritage makes playoff debut at Greene County
Christian Heritage didn’t get a win in its two region games, but the Lions have an opportunity to make up for that in the playoffs.
Region 7-A Division II had just three football teams, allowing Christian Heritage to reach the postseason as the third seed in the region.
The Lions (4-6) travel to Greensboro to play Greene County in the first round of the Class A Division II playoffs tonight at 7:30.
Greene County (6-4), the second-seeded team from Region 8, sports an almost perfectly-balanced offense. The Tigers have 1,561 passing yards and 1,541 rushing yards for the season so far.
The bulk of those rushing yards come from Malik West (959), and passer Steve Miller has put up 1,510 yards and 20 scores. Christian Heritage’s defense has shown the ability to limit prolific passers this season, holding down Mount Pisgah Christian’s Jack Cendoya.
The Lions get the lion’s share of their offense on the ground, especially so late in the season.
Quarterback Carter Triplett attempted more than five passes just once in the final five games of the season. Senior Eli Thomason rushed for more than 120 yards four times in that same period, and he’s totaled 1,214 yards and 16 touchdowns. Jaylon Gay has also come on as a runner late in the season, crossing 100 yards twice in the last three games.
If the Lions come out on top against Greene County they’ll play either Johnson County or Chattahoochee County.