Lee County ended the state’s longest winning streaks, and Milton, Valdosta, Ware County and North Oconee won critical region matchups in high school football Friday night.
Others teams with noteworthy victories were Rockmart, Dublin, Brooks County, Thomasville, North Hall, North Murray and Aquinas.
Lee County beat reigning Class 5A champion Coffee 48-14 and became the second team in state history to end two 20-game winning streaks in one season.
Lee, ranked No. 2 in Class 5A, ended Thomas County Central’s 20-game winning streak last month. Coffee, ranked No. 3, had won 21 straight games. The only previous team to stop two 20-game winning streaks was 2001 Crisp County.
Milton, the No. 1 team in Class 5A, defeated No. 6 Gainesville 42-24. Gainesville had been 15-0 in region games and 26-0 in regular-season games since hiring Josh Niblett as coach in 2022. Milton (8-0, 4-0) leads Region 7, although No. 7 Roswell (6-1, 3-0) remains close.
Valdosta, the No. 4 team in Class 6A, moved closer to its first region title in the highest class since 2011 with a 7-3 victory over No. 10 Colquitt County. Valdosta (7-0, 2-0) beat then-No. 4 Camden County last week and is now alone in first place in Region 1.
Class 4A featured two major showdowns.
In one, No. 5 North Oconee beat No. 7 Eastside 40-35. It was the Titans’ 28th straight region victory. The game-winning touchdown came on Buster Faulkner’s 3-yard pass to Khamari Brooks with 19 seconds left. North Oconee (8-0, 4-0) is alone in first in Region 8 and likely headed for its fourth straight region championship.
In the other top 4A matchup, unranked Ware County stunned second-ranked Benedictine 38-14. Benedictine led 14-3 in the first half. Ware entered 3-3 but with losses to two Florida teams and to Coffee. A perennial contender, Ware has beaten Benedictine three of the past five seasons.
In Class A Division I, No. 2 Dublin of Class A Division I beat No. 6 Northeast 21-7, and No. 7 Thomasville beat No. 3 Fitzgerald 23-8.
In Class A Division II, No. 3 Brooks County trounced No. 4 Clinch County 42-12. Brooks (4-3, 2-0) still must face No. 1 Irwin County in Region 2.
Rockmart, the No. 6 team in Class 2A, kept its state-best 55-game region winning streak alive with a 24-21 victory over eighth-ranked North Cobb Christian. Rockmart (5-2, 5-0) is now alone in first place in Region 7.
In upsets of ranked teams, North Hall beat Class 3A-A private’s No. 10 team, Greater Atlanta Christian, 27-23; Aquinas beat Class 3A’s No. 10 team, Harlem, 12-7; and North Murray beat Class 2A’s No. 10 team, Ringgold, 27-26.
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