The fifth week of high school football is over, and things are about to get a lot more interesting. 

With just five games left this season, teams will be scrambling to add as many wins as they can and improve their postseason positioning. 

11 games were going on in Lexington County last week. Local teams went 7-4 in those contests. Four teams were on a bye week. All four come from 5A Region-4. 

Below are some of the biggest storylines following the fifth week of football. 

Region season begins this week for most of Lexington County

The games are about to matter a whole lot more for the majority of teams in Lexington County. Over half of the area’s teams have yet to begin region play, but that changes this week. 

Only Airport, Gilbert, Gray Collegiate, Brookland-Cayce and Northside Christian played in a region contest entering this week. Everyone else will play their first region contest on Friday. 

All six of the county’s 5A teams will end the year rotating amongst each other. This week, River Bluff plays White Knoll, Dutch Fork plays Chapin and Irmo plays Lexington. 

Swansea is the only local team in its region and will look to compete for a title after starting the year 6-0. 

American Leadership and Pelion join three other out-of-area teams in trying to dethrone Batesburg-Leesville from the top of their 2A region. 

Many teams spend the first half of their seasons working through mistakes and setting the best lineups to compete come region time. It is the region games that determine final playoff seeding. The higher the place in the standings, the better the spot.

Rainy weather shuffles the schedule 

Weather has played a large factor early this season, and week five was no different. 

Rainy weather can affect a lot of a team’s game plan. Slick conditions make it harder to keep your footing and make tackles. The water on the ball also makes it harder to catch and hold on to. 

While not as severe as previous weeks, the rain shuffled a few games around, moving some to Thursday and earlier Friday. In the end, it didn’t matter when the games were played; they all dealt with various levels of rain. 

Pelion and Batesburg-Leesville played on Thursday night. Lexington and Brookland-Cayce started earlier Friday, while others started as scheduled. 

No lightning in the area kept the action going despite the downpour, so every team got to play its entire game in one sitting. 

Swansea, Irmo stand alone undefeated 

Only two teams are left unbeaten at the midway point of the season. Swansea and Irmo are a combined 11-0 this season after the Tigers picked up a 36-6 win over Columbia last week. 

Irmo was on a bye last week and will begin region play this week as the No. 1-ranked team in the latest 5A coaches poll. 

For Swansea, the Tigers are 6-0 for the first time since 2012, when the team began the year 7-0. 

The pair still has a lot of season and tough tests left before the playoffs begin, so it’s important they don’t look too far ahead. Neither won their region last year and will have to knock off the defending champs to do so this year. 

While Swansea and Irmo have had great starts, there are still a pair of teams in Lexington County looking for their first win.

Airport played its closest game of the year, but fell to South Aiken 28-15 last week. The Eagles are 0-5 overall and 0-2 in region play and will have another difficult opponent in Midland Valley this week. 

Chapin is also 0-5 and will begin region play fresh off a bye week. The team will play Dutch Fork to get things started. From there, the team has games against Lexington, River Bluff, Irmo and White Knoll. 

Last week’s big performances 

Xavier Wright had five touchdown passes in Gray Collegiate’s win over North Augusta. 

Jai Chuniesingh had three touchdowns and nearly 200 yards receiving as Pelion beat Eau Claire. 

Trace Selfridge scored three total touchdowns as Swansea improved to 6-0 this season. 

Nigel Lewis caught a touchdown and had close to 100 yards receiving in Lexington’s shutout win against Laurens. 

Week 6 games to watch 

White Knoll vs. River Bluff

Batesburg-Leesville vs. Strom Thurmond

Gilbert at South Aiken

Pelion vs. Ninety Six

Week 5 scoreboard

Lexington: 35, Laurens: 0

White Knoll: 40, Fort Dorchester: 0

South Aiken: 28, Airport: 15

Midland Valley: 34, Brookland-Cayce: 7

Gray Collegiate: 41, North Augusta: 27

Gilbert: 30, Aiken: 13

Swansea: 36, Columbia: 6

Thomas Sumter: 35, American Leadership: 17

Batesburg-Leesville: 41, Mid-Carolina: 24

Pelion: 48, Eau Claire: 30

Trinity Collegiate: 27, Northside Christian: 0