In only their second year of existence, the boys’ basketball team at New Manchester took home the Region 5-AAAAA Championship and its top seed as they defeated Villa Rica, 47-46, in the region tournament Saturday — giving them home court advantage in round one of the state playoffs this week.

Finishing out the first half of the season with a 6-7 record, the Jaguars turned things around and were 19-9 going into the playoffs as they only lost two games in 2013 — 53-52 against South Paulding and 67-63 to Lithia Springs.

While they lost to these teams at the beginning of the new year, when they faced them again a few weeks later, the Jaguars took the victories, 52-50 against South Paulding and 63-59 against Lithia Springs.

The region tournament began for New Manchester on Feb. 13 with a 76-57 victory over Woodland and the action continued on Feb. 15 with another victory over Allatoona, 54-50.

Other boys’ teams in the county to make it to the state playoffs were Alexander, Chapel Hill and Douglas County.

With a loss to Fayette County on Feb. 15 to kick off their region tournament, the Alexander Cougars recovered with a 70-61 victory over Shaw on Feb. 16.

Alexander went into the playoffs as the third seed in 5-AAAA.

Chapel Hill began the tournament with a 67-49 victory over Jackson-Atlanta and finished as the fourth seed for region 4-AAA.

Douglas County lost to both Newnan and Westlake in the 3-AAAAAA region tournament, but made it into the playoffs as the fourth seed.

On the girls’ side, Chapel Hill is the top topic as they had a 24-3 record before going to state and finished the 4-AAA region tournament as the region champions after defeating Douglass 67-45 and Callaway 40-29.

The Lady Panthers beat both of these teams three times this season.

The Douglas County Lady Tigers had a slightly tougher time getting into the state playoffs as they finished the tournament with a loss.

Starting the tournament with a 65-59 win over Westlake and ending with a 68-62 loss to Langston Hughes, Douglas County is the second seed from the 3-AAAAAA region.

In Region 5-AAAAA the Lady Lions of Lithia Springs started off with a 58-48 loss to Allatoona but came back the next day to take a 54-47 victory over Paulding County, giving them the third seed in the region.