Alcovy and Newton needed road wins Friday for different reasons. For the Tigers, a win would give them a state playoff berth and at least one home playoff game. He Rams needed a win just to keep their slim playoffs hopes alive. Neither team accomplished its mission.

The Tigers fell to Dutchtown 32-24 and will have to wait until Friday to try again to punch their ticket to the playoffs while the Rams dropped to 0-4 in the region after a 26-10 loss to M.L. King and will miss the postseason.

Alcovy has two games remaining but the finale is the region playoff game. That means if the Tigers want to host at least one playoff game and avert the need to win their region playoff game to make the state playoffs, they’ll need a win Friday against Woodland, Henry. Friday’s game will also be senior night.

Should the Tigers win Friday, they’d travel to play the winner of Region 3B-AAAA which will be either Northgate or Whitewater for the region championship and No. 1 seed. The loser of that game enters the state playoffs as the second seed. Should Alcovy lose to Woodland, the Tigers could still secure the subregion top seed and play for the region championship if Jones County loses to Union Grove and Dutchtown loses to either Griffin or Woodland. Should those scenarios not play out and Alcovy loses Friday, they’d play the third-place team in the subregion with the winner advancing to the state playoffs.

Newton’s loss means the Rams will miss the state playoffs for the second straight year. What again started as a promising season, Newton hasn’t been able to find enough offense to crack the win column in the region while the top four teams all started 3-0.

East Coweta, one of those teams, fell to Westlake Friday and could conceivably finish 3-4 in the region as can the Rams if they were to win out. By virtue of the Indians’ win over Newton in week five though, the Rams would miss the playoffs on a tie-breaker.

Newton faced perhaps its toughest region opponents in the first four weeks and needed to win at least one of those games to have a shot. Last year the Rams beat Newnan to open the region schedule but lost to Westlake last in the season. That loss turned out to be the one that kept them out of the playoffs. Newnan, Stephenson, East Coweta and M.L. King each won their first three region games. The standings will see a weekly shake up from here on out as those four teams play each other over the final three weeks.

The Rams can still finish with a winning record for the third straight year by sweeping the remainder of their games. They finished 6-4 last year and 6-5 in 2009, the last year they made the playoffs.