THOMASVILLE – The Thomas County Central soccer teams return to the field this week for the second round of the Class AAAA playoffs. One hasn’t played a game in more than a week. The other demolished its first-round opponent.

Central’s girls will host Heritage at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, while the boys will host Northwest-Whitfield on Thursday at 5:30 p.m.

The Lady Jackets won Region 1 and were rewarded with a first-round bye. But that followed spring break and extended time without game action, which was concerning for Central coach Tony Voyles.

“I was actually more worried about the rest for the girls as I was about the boys playing a game,” he said. “We really had some good momentum going at the end of the season. We did have spring break where we only practiced a couple of times and played one game in a week. Then last week in the first round we had a bye, so we didn’t play at all. I was very worried about that.”

The Lady Jackets scrimmaged Central’s junior varsity boys team last week to try to recapture that rhythm they had before spring break. Central’s girls are 12-3-2 and have won four straight.

“All of this is new this year with us starting the playoffs immediately after our spring break and not having a week where we’re still playing a couple of regular season games,” Voyles said. “It’s one of those things where you have to make a decision on how you want to do it and how much training you want to do. Hopefully we found the right mix and have done some good work over spring break and this past week. We fine tuned (Monday and Tuesday), and hopefully we will be ready for the game (Wednesday).”

The boys team stayed in rhythm in its playoff opener. Central cruised past New Hampstead 10-0 in last week’s first-round matchup. Central is 14-4-1 and has won six straight.

“They did a great job last week. Being the (No.) 1 seed and playing the 4 seed, it’s a game we’re hosting and we, on paper, at least should win,” Voyles said. “They did a good job of taking care of business and playing the way we should and needed to play. They’ve trained really well the rest of the time. We should be ready both physically and mentally. Hopefully it all pays off and we take care of business on Thursday.”