Canes' first round opponent to be determined by Monday mini-games

The Cartersville Purple Hurricanes completed another perfect 10-0 regular season this past Friday night and captured their sixth consecutive region championship, but they will have to wait until Monday night to discover their first round opponent in the 2017 Class AAAA state playoffs.

The delay is due to a three-way tie for the final two playoff spots in Region 6-AAAA.

Southeast Whitfield, Northwest Whitfield, and Pickens each finished with 3-3 region records and were 1-1 against the other two teams in the tie.

That means the three teams will compete in a pair of mini-game tiebreakers Monday night at North Murray High School in Chatsworth to decide the No. 3 and No. 4 seeds from 6-AAAA.

Northwest Whitfield and Pickens play the first mini-game at 7 p.m. with the winner advancing to the state playoffs. The loser of the first mini-game will then face Southeast Whitfield for the final playoff berth. The order of play was determined by coin toss.

The seeding for the two surviving teams will be determined by the head-to-head regular season result between the two qualifying teams.

Southeast defeated Northwest in regular season play. Northwest topped Pickens and Pickens defeated Southeast.

After the final two teams for the state playoffs are decided Monday night, Cedartown will host the 3rd-seeded team from Region 6-AAAA and Cartersville will host the 4th-seeded team Friday night.

The other two first round state playoff pairings between the two regions includes Troup at Heritage-Catoosa and Chapel Hill at Ridgeland.

Georgia High School Association tie-breaker mini-games consist of two five-minute halves. Play begins in each half with a free kick and standard game rules and scoring are used. There is a two-minute halftime. Each team is allotted two timeouts in the first five minutes and one timeout in the second five minutes. Any unused timeouts may be carried over from the first half. If the score is tied at the end of the two halves, the teams go to the GHSA 15-yard overtime procedure.