By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
ELAINE--The Palestine-Wheatley Patriots clinched a berth in the upcoming Class AA Regional Tournament Wednesday and didn't even have to suit up to do it.
Clarendon defeated Marvell 68-48 Wednesday night in quarterfinal action, leaving the Patriots, along with Barton and Altheimer as the four remaining teams still alive in district play at Elaine.
The 6AA district sends four teams to the regional tournament.
The fourth-seeded Patriots will play third-seeded Barton tonight at 8:15 p.m.
The winner advances to play Clarendon Friday in the semifinal game at 8:15 p.m.
No. 6 seeded Barton pulled the first upset of the district Wednesday by knocking off No. 3 seeded Marvell 41-32.
Barton will play Elaine, a 47-44 overtime winner over Clarendon, Friday night in semifinal action.
Altheimer, the top seed into the junior boys' bracket, takes on Palestine-Wheatley tonight at 5:45 p.m.
The Junior Patriots defeated Gillett Monday night 38-35 to advance.
The Palestine-Wheatley Junior Lady Patriots ended their season Wednesday night in a 35-21 loss to Elaine at the 6AA District Tournament.
Marquisha Applewhite scored nine points to lead P-W while Fallon Parker added three points.
Elaine, the No. 3 seed, advances to Friday's semifinal game against No. 2 seed Gillett.
Barton and Marvell meet tonight in semifinal action with the winner advancing to Saturday's championship game.
Barton's Lady Bears took another step toward a third meeting with Palestine-Wheatley by defeating Gillett 64-25 Wednesday.
Altheimer and Marvell will play tonight for the right to meet Barton in Friday's semifinal game. That winner gets the No. 2 ranked Lady Patriots Saturday in the championship game at 7 p.m.
P-W, Barton, Altheimer and Marvell have all locked up regional tournament berths.
Harding Academy and Carlisle will play for the senior girls' 2AA-South tournament title Friday at 6:30 p.m., at Harding Academy
In the senior boys' bracket, Augusta and Carlisle will play for the boys' 2AA-South title at 8 p.m.
The Harding Academy, Carlisle, Des Arc and Augusta boys and girls teams will represent the 2AA South into the regional tournament which begins Wednesday, Feb. 21, at Harding Academy in Searcy.
Last year, Altheimer won the regional tournament title with a win over Augusta in the finals played at Palestine-Wheatley.
The P-W Lady Patriots defeated Des Arc in last year's regional girls' finals.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
The finals of the AAAAA-East Junior District Tournament will be played today at Mustang Arena in Forrest City.
Top-seeded West Memphis Wonder and No. 2 seeded Blytheville east will play for the boys' title at 7:30 p.m.
Wonder defeated Jonesboro MacArthur Wednesday, 40-22 in semifinal action.
Desma McCoy led Wonder with 20 points.
Blytheville East knocked off West Memphis West 42-39 in Wednesday's other semifinal game to advance to tonight's title game.
In junior girls' action, top-seeded Blytheville East defeated Jonesboro Annie Camp 42-27 and West Memphis East got past Jonesboro MacArthur 34-29 to set up today's girls' final, which will begin at 6 p.m.
East led 14-8 after one period and 22-13 over Annie Camp in Wednesday's semifinal.
West Memphis East got 18 points from Marquette Hollins and 11 points from Jessica Johnson to put away MacArthur.
East trailed until the fourth period, when they outscored MacArthur 18-to-2 to get the win.
Hollins had 10 of her total (which included two three-pointers) in the fourth frame. She hit two three-pointers
Johnson added seven points in the big fourth period.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Friday night, the Forrest City Mustangs and Lady Mustangs will play their final regular-season home game of the year when they host West Memphis in what has now become a key AAAAA-East game.
Tuesday, the Mustangs fell to Jacksonville 54-52 in overtime while the Blytheville Chickasaws were putting away the Jonesboro Hurricane 52-42.
That leaves the Mustangs and Hurricane in a tied in the East standings. West Memphis, a big winner over Sylvan Hills on Tuesday is very much alive in the conference race for one of the two remaining postseason berths.
A West Memphis victory would leave Forrest City and the Blue Devils tied.
Forrest City led Jacksonville by as many as eight points twice in the second half before letting the Red Devils back into the game.
Little Rock Mills and Blytheville have already locked up a state tournament berth, but will face each Friday night.
A Blytheville victory would leave the two teams locked in a tie for first in the league with one game remaining.
Jonesboro could have clinched one of the league's state tournament slots had they defeated Blytheville Tuesday.
Blytheville completed a season sweep of the Hurricane.
Blytheville won the teams previous meeting at Blytheville three weeks ago 44-42 after opening the game in an 11-0 hole.
Blytheville led 14-9 after one period, 24-16 at halftime and 37-25 entering the final period.
Meanwhile in AAAAA-East girls' play, the Jonesboro Lady Hurricane got something it wanted and something it needed on Senior Night at Hurricane Gym.
Jonesboro, which won nine of its first 11 AAAAA-East conference games by double-digit margins, had to rally from a 10-point second-half deficit to clip rival Blytheville 51-50 Tuesday night and clinch its second straight conference championship and will wear the No. 1 seed into the state tournament, which will be played at Forrest City beginning Feb. 27.
Jonesboro, defeated Blytheville 49-45 at Blytheville three weeks ago and won by five at Jacksonville a week ago.
The Lady Chicks can clinch a state tournament bid with a win over Little Rock Mills Friday.
Blytheville is tied with Jacksonville in the standings.
Calvary Christian School will co-host the MACS Junior District Basketball Tournament, beginning today at the high school gym. Central Baptist will help co-host the tournament as well.
Calvary will also host the senior district tournament, which begins next week.
The junior boys bracket features eight teams while the junior girls side is made of five teams.
First-round junior boys games today at Calvary include Lord's Ranch vs Faith at 6 p.m. and Calvary's Junior Eagles vs Macon Road at Calvary at 7 p.m.