THOMASVILLE —The Region 1-AA basketball championships for girls and boys will be decided this week at Thomasville High’s home gym. Both the Thomasville girls and boys teams are No. 1 seeds and  eying region tournament titles ahead of the state tournament next week.

“It’s very exciting to have the girls ranked No. 1 in our region. I don’t think they’ve done that in a very long time. I’m really excited for them,” Thomasville boys coach Ben Tillman said. “For us to be able to be there with them is great also. To have that kind of competitive nature, to be able to compete at the same time for the same thing is great.”

The tournament started Tuesday with the play-in games for both divisions. The semifinals will be held at Thomasville on Thursday, starting at 4 p.m. The Thomasville girls will play Berrien on Thursday at 7 p.m., followed by the Thomasville boys against Cook at 8:30 p.m. The championship games will be held Friday, starting at 7 p.m.

“It’s going to be very exciting. Each group has a chance to participate in front of their home crowd. It should be very exciting for the girls,” Thomasville girls coach Jeray Randall said.

The Lady Bulldogs are 17-7, 9-1 in region play this year. Their only region loss was a slim 38-37 defeat to Berrien. Thomasville has won six of its last seven heading into the postseason.

“It’s just a joy to see their enthusiasm every day they come, their energy — just to see that they are excited about things that they are actually accomplishing without people giving them anything,” Randall added.

The Thomasville boys roll into Thursday night having gone through region play undefeated for a second straight season. At 20-4, the Bulldogs are eyeing an even greater prize than the region title

“It’s part of our plan,” Tillman said. “We’ve always divided the season into four quadrants. You have the non-region and region contests, and now we’re just moving into the third season. In our minds, everybody is 0-0. We’ve just got to handle our business and need to win these next two ballgames and move on into the fourth season. That’s how we look at it.

“We want to make sure that the kids understand it’s one game at a time. We’ve just got to come out and perform.”

Early County will play Fitzgerald in the first girls semifinal at 4 p.m. on Thursday. Early County will play Berrien in the first boys semifinal at 5:30 p.m.