After losing some heartbreakingly close games this season—including to Newnan at Raider Valley—the Walton football team was involved in another nailbiter in a rematch Friday night in the first round of the Georgia state playoffs.
The Raiders took an early 10-0 lead, but Newnan kept hanging around until the final minutes, scoring 14 points in the fourth quarter. This time, however, Walton didn’t squander the lead, and came away with a 27-24 victory to move on to the second round.
Walton is only 6-5 on the season, but four of those losses have come by a combined 15 points.
What’s facing the Raiders next? The other team that beat them this season, and it was a blowout. Walton travels to North Gwinnett next Friday in another rematch in Class 7A.
North Gwinnett, which defeated Walton 35-0 in September, is coming off a 51-14 win over Shiloh on Friday.
The Gladiators, whom Walton beat two years ago en route to a state championship, are 10-1 and ranked No. 4 in Class 7A. They haven’t lost since the opening game of the season, to second-ranked Colquitt County (which ended Walton’s season last year).
The Kell Longhorns jumped to an early lead and never gave it up, defeating Columbis 48-32 in a Class 5A game Friday at Avondale Stadium in DeKalb County.
The Longhorns are 9-2, and will head to Fayetteville on Friday when they play at Starr’s Mill (8-3), which downed Harris County 28-7.
A blocked extra point made the difference between winning and losing for Sprayberry, which reached the playoffs for the first time since 2011.
The Yellow Jackets had a chance to tie the game after scoring a fourth quarter touchdown at Lanier, but the point-after try was blocked, and they fell 15-14 in a Class 6A playoff game in Gwinnett County.
Sprayberry finishes the season at 6-5 and will return running back Demarion Owens, who rushed for more than 1,500 yards as a junior.
Wheeler also was back in the playoffs after a four-year absence, and faced the daunting prospect of playing at Roswell. The game was close in the first half, but after halftime the Hornets rolled to a 31-0 win in Class 7A.
The Wildcats were 5-6 under first-year head coach Bryan Love, and will move next year to Class 6A and compete in the same region with Lassiter, Sprayberry, Pope and Kell.
Get Our Free E-Mail Newsletter!
Every Sunday we round up the week’s top headlines and preview the upcoming week in the East Cobb News Digest. Click here to sign up, and you’re good to go!
