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By KEVIN ECKLEBERRY

Daily News

The race for state is underway.

There are nine teams in Region 2-AAAA, and while four of them will advance to the state playoffs, the other five will be on the outside looking in when the regular season concludes on Nov. 19.

LaGrange and Troup are two of the region’s teams hopeful of earning a state invitation, and they’ll both play their region openers on Friday.

While Troup is hosting Hardaway, LaGrange travels to Kinnett Stadium to play Columbus.

The other teams in the region are Columbus, Kendrick, Shaw, Carver, Jordan, Spencer and Hardaway.

The region schedule got underway last week with Carver beating Spencer 53-7, and Jordan beat Spencer 18-8 on Thursday.

The Troup Tigers have lost their first two games of the season to Harris County and Callaway, but they’re ready to turn the page with the start of region competition.

“The culture of our team is really good,” said Troup head coach Tanner Glisson. “We like coaching the guys. They’re a fun group to be around. They haven’t batted an eye since we started, all through the protocols, through the quarantine, through two losses. When they turn the corner, they’re going to be a really good football team.”

LaGrange opened with a loss to Upson-Lee before beating Northside-Columbus 35-28 in overtime.

“If you have success, you buy into the process a little bit more, you buy into the intangibles of what we’re talking about,” said LaGrange head coach Matt Napier. “Winning helps, no doubt about that. We felt like we let it be more of a game than we should have had, but I’ll take a win every day of the week.”

Here are the records for all the teams in the region, along with a schedule of this week’s games:

Overall record first, followed by region record

Carver 1-0, 1-0

LaGrange 1-1, 0-0

Hardaway, 1-1, 0-0

Spencer 1-3, 1-0

Kendrick 0-1, 0-0

Jordan 0-1, 0-1

Troup 0-2, 0-0

Shaw 0-2, 0-0

Columbus 0-2, 0-0

Thursday’s games

Jordan 18, Spencer 8

Northside-Columbus 24, Shaw 22

Friday’s games

Hardaway at Troup, 7:30 p.m.

LaGrange at Columbus (Kinnett Stadium), 7:30 p.m.

Kendrick at Carver (Memorial Stadium), 7:30 p.m.