METRO PREIVEWS: Cobb powers square off in second round

Cobb County has nine teams in the second round of the GHSA playoffs, but several teams square off against each other for the right to advance. Walton hosts South Cobb in a game that should see the Raiders look to pound Tyren Jones again and again. Jones is the county’s touchdown leader, and the Walton faithful hopes he adds on to his total. Zack Blaylock intercepted his ninth pass of the year last week, leading to his fourth pick-six of the season. … McEachern will host Lassiter in the gpb.org webcast of the week. This will be the first time these two Cobb County powers have ever faced each other. The two schools met in a pre-season scrimmage in 2008. … Kell will travel to face Lovejoy, a team that gives up very few points. The Longhorns ended Marist’s home winning streak last week but may be hard pressed to even score on Lovejoy, a team with seven shutouts this year. … Holland Frost ran for a handful of scores a week ago and now Pope will host Tri-Cities. The visitors boast their own multi-threat in Oscar Ross, who last week ran for a pair of scores and passed for two against Alcovy. … The Buford Wolves host Jefferson County just days after Nathan Staub announced he was headed to UNC. The linebacker/fullback marks the sixth Buford player to pledge to a BCS school. Vadal Alexander, Dillon Lee, CJ Moore, Paris Head, Reid Ferguson have already committed and Kurt Freitag and Dequan Clark would make it eight total as both have BCS offers. … ML King will square off with defending champion Brookwood at Hallford Stadium. The Broncos will bring a powerful rushing attack while the Lions will look to the air. Each team also is dangerous in the return game with Blake Tibbs for ML King and Nick Tompkins for Brookwood.