Non-region finales for East/West Laurens, intriguing rivalries among area’s week 5 football features

For East and West Laurens, finding and keeping momentum has been a struggle through the season’s first four weeks, in which both teams’ confidence, for a variety of reasons, has remained elusive. 

The Falcons and Raiders each need a win badly as they finish out the preliminary portions of their schedule Friday night, and get the Laurens County spotlight to themselves as neighbors Dublin (3-1) and Trinity (2-3) take a week off before the start of region play. 

East (0-3) will travel to take on an also winless Metter (0-4) in The Jungle. West (1-2) faces its fourth top-10 ranked opponent in as many games as No. 5 Monroe Area (4-0) visits The SHU, and Laurens County for the first time ever. 

Home rivalry games for No. 2 Johnson County and No. 8 Montgomery County will be the only other in-town action out of five additional games on a light local slate.

A bye week to regroup, after back-to-back close ones with Southeast Bulloch and Washington County got away by only nine combined points, should be beneficial for the Falcons as they try to eliminate some nagging mistakes and put four consistent quarters together for the first time. 

East’s open-field speed at the skill positions will be just as much a problem for Metter as it has for three opponents so far. But the Falcons will have to handle the Tigers’ strong defensive front and find an effective run game to stay out of the third-and-long situations that were killers of key drives that might’ve made a difference in their last two games. 

Injuries were tough to overcome for the Raiders’ offense with three key skill athletes on the shelf for last week’s trip to Cook, where yardage was minimal and a major missed opportunity on their lone red zone visit loomed large in a 6-0 loss that could’ve easily swung the other way. 

Much of their focus in the matchup will be turned to the home side of the field and line of scrimmage, where healing up and correcting issues a week from the start of league play is of top priority. But AAAA’s top-scoring offense, and a Ty Cummings-caliber playmaker in Monroe Area quarterback Cooper Shumate (who last week became the state’s first 1,000-yard rusher), should also give them a great idea of how well they match up against one of the best teams in the classification. 

Off some strong performances in the first three weeks, can the West Laurens defense become a first this fall to slow down the Hurricanes’ raging attack, which is averaging 49 points a game, nine yards per carry and 444 rushing yards a game? 

In one of the Heart of Georgia’s other week 5 headliners, Johnson County and Wilcox County collide for the 10th time in their history at Herschel Walker Field, as teams headed in totally separate directions through three games. 

Though they’ve had the upper hand in the last three meetings, the Patriots (0-3) enter this time as the clear underdog after three games on the schneid, with the Trojans (3-0) gunning to beat them for a first time in the Don Norton era as they continue to gain steam. 

One of two Tri-County unbeatens will also be no longer after a milestone 70th grudge match between MoCo and Treutlen at Brogdon Field. Though some of-yet unstoppable forces on offense, in the Vikings’ Peanut Tobler and the Eagles’ Zaden Waller and Elijah McEwen, will be focal points in the chess match, look for which of two salty defenses can make the bigger difference as the game’s deciding factor.

Road games round out the rest of the week, as Brentwood (3-2) faces another test against unbeaten antagonist Lake Oconee Academy (4-0) and both Dodge County (1-2), at Dooly County (1-2), and Wheeler County (1-2), at Taylor County (3-0), try to bring an end to two-week slides.