The basketball state playoffs are advancing quickly and this year’s Final Four will be set by Wednesday night with the boys and Tuesday night for the girls. Defending state champion Grayson is still alive in both brackets after completing historic sweeps of state titles in Class 7A last year. The Lady Rams will have to travel to Lowndes on Tuesday to face the Vikings and have not lost since the season opener to Cherokee. Region 3 champion Hillgrove will travel to Cherokee—which is the Region 5 champion. As a result, the left side of the girls bracket has all four region champions still alive. On the right side, second-seeded Newton is the only Elite Eight team that is not a region champion. The Lady Rams will take on Buford and the top of the bracket will be undefeated North Forsyth hosting Carrollton—which defeated North Paulding 44-43 this weekend.
Region 5 has excelled in the Class 6A bracket and has all four playoff teams in the Elite Eight. In other words, the four matchups will be Region 5 against two region champions (Pebblebrook and Grayson) and then two No. 2 seeds Pebblebrook and Norcross, which both knocked off region champs in the last round. Pebblebrook defeated Region 6 champion Lambert 85-58 and Norcross scored a 63-57 win over Region 3 champion McEachern.
The biggest upset seen so far on the boys side was Norcross’ win over McEachern. The Blue Devils had just lost in the region championship to Peachtree Ridge and carried a 17-11 record into the matchup against a 24-4 McEachern team that was coming off last year’s run to the finals. In the victory, Norcross jumped out to a 17-5 lead and took a 27-23 advantage into the second half. Josh Smith Jr., the son of former NBA standout Josh Smith hit back-to-back three-pointers in the second half to spark an 8-0 run that gave Norcross a 43-31 lead with 1:41 left in the third quarter.
Around the Classification: Peachtree Ridge’s Dance Team won the program’s second state title and first since 2023 over the weekend with a 98.90 Hip Hop routine. The biggest takeaway from the event, however, was the depth seen in Class 6A with half of the field scoring well into the 90’s. The Lions’ score was the highest mark posted in all four classifications and gave them just enough to hold off runner-up Mill Creek (98.48), Buford (98.05), Etowah (95.00), North Gwinnett (93.90), Westlake (93.90) and defending state champion South Forsyth (93.30). Carrollton (91.48) also scored well in this year’s 16-team Class 6A field. First-time state champion Heritage-Catoosa (Class 2A-3A) had the second-highest score out of this year’s state champions with a 96.85 to provide context to how deep this year’s meet was.
Around the Classification: North Gwinnett dominated at the Gary Billion Invitational over the weekend with both the boys and girls sweeping titles at the nine-team event. The girls won first with 179 points—topping runner-up Cambridge’s 114. The boys scored a whopping 245 points to surpass runner-up North Hall’s 86 points. First-place finishers for the boys were Madai Similao (400 meters, 50.24), Nijel Jackson (300 hurdles, 43.09) and Owen Gaines (3200 meter, 9:52.21). On the girls side, Cameron Martin won the 200 meter with a 26.35 and the shotput (31 feet, 8 inches). Tessa Pope won the 3200 meter with a 12:15.36.
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