A wide open lane for Damieon Dixon to finish the Houston game with a two-yard touchdown run for Tift County.

TIFTON — Tift County has updated the status for its Region 1-6A opener against Richmond Hill. The game will be played Saturday at 2 p.m. at Richmond Hill.

School officials had been in talks about the game’s status. Tift athletic director Chris Martin mentioned Saturday as a possibility earlier this week. That turned out to be agreeable to both sides with the Saturday date announced this afternoon.

The other two region games, Colquitt-Lowndes and Valdosta-Camden are still up in the air. Valdosta City Schools announced on Facebook a decision will be made Friday. Colquitt-Lowndes will not be played Friday, but no makeup has been announced.

In the Wildcats, Tift gets one of the state’s most underrated teams. Richmond Hill is 5-0, finishing up non-region with a 35-28 victory over Buchholz, Florida. That has been the closest call of the season. Only New Hampstead has been as close as 19 points to the Wildcats.

Presently, they average a score of 40-14.

Richmond Hill is very much a running team. Quarterback Kirk Scott has only attempted 26 passes, completing 14 of them. Scott has squeezed out three touchdowns out of 195 passing yards. Because he doesn’t throw much, he’s only been picked once.

Scott does run, however, and he runs often. He currently has the second most carries for the ‘Cats, one behind Amire Miller. Neither are the team’s yardage leaders. Those are Joshua Troupe with 755 (12 touchdowns) and Caleb Easterling, 400 (6 touchdowns).

Easterling, who averages an astonishing 20 yards per carry, is likely the man to catch a pass in the rare instances Scott throws them.

Richmond Hill’s defense keeps the opposition off the field, averaging 10 stops behind the line per game. They have 27 sacks and four interceptions.

This will be the first meeting between the schools on the gridiron.

Richmond Hill is a young football program compared to most Georgia high schools, playing its first varsity game in 1986. They are not a young school, though.

Bryan County has two public high schools within its borders, Richmond Hill and Bryan County. They are on opposites of a county that is split in two by Fort Stewart.

Close to Savannah, Richmond Hill has grown quickly over the past 30 years. They were always in Georgia’s lowest classification, be it Class C, B or A, until 1994. The Wildcats spent six years in 2A, 10 in 3A and only two in 4A until rocketing to 5A in 2012.

Richmond Hill was almost placed in Region 1-7A in 2020, but was allowed to stay 6A because of isolation. They were added to 7A in 2022 and back down to 6A this year when the GHSA removed 7A.

Tift County takes a 2-3 record to the coast. They were off last week, but put up a good challenge to Houston County in a 42-19 loss to close out non-region. The Blue Devils have won over Griffin (43-0) and Bainbridge (17-14) with losses to Gadsden County (Florida), Lee County and Houston.

It’s been a balanced offense for the young Devils. Kamari Holloman has 338 yards and five touchdowns to lead the rushers. Damieon Dixon has completed 44 of 79 passes for 404 yards and four touchdowns. Dai’jon Hayes has caught three Dixon TD tosses and Holloman has the other.

Other games going on in the region this week see Lowndes at Colquitt County and Camden County at Valdosta. Richmond Hill, Lowndes, Camden and Valdosta are all undefeated.

Tift will have a much shorter trip next week, hosting Lowndes.