By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
How important was Forrest City's sweep over Jacksonville Tuesday night in Mustang Arena?
How big was the overtime win over Jonesboro for the Mountain Home girls?
How crucial will Friday's upcoming AAAAA-East schedule of games be and how will it affect the second-half of the conference season and the playoff picture?
All very good questions at this point in the season.
Both Forrest City teams rekindled their tournament hopes with a double-header sweep over Jacksonville. The Mustangs are 3-3 and locked in a four-way tie for third. Jonesboro is one of those four.
The Lady Mustangs are also 3-3 and tied with Jonesboro for fourth in the girls' East standings.
Forrest City will host Jonesboro Friday at Mustang Arena in a conference game which brings with it huge implications for both sides.
A Mustang win over the Hurricane gets them to 4-3 at the conference turn and maybe into a tie for second place in the boys' standings, depending on how Jacksonville fares against Mountain Home.
Jacksonville is 4-3 already, having played one more game than Forrest City.
A Lady Mustang win over Jonesboro would leave Forrest City in fourth place all alone provided Mountain Home defeats Jacksonville.
A Jacksonville win over Mountain Home would vault the Lady Mustangs into third.
Mountain Home's Lady Bombers reached the semifinals of the Class AAAAA state tournament a year ago defeating Jacksonville along the way and would enjoy nothing better than a repeat performance from a brand new league this time around.
Jonesboro's girls are coming off a 37-35 overtime loss to Mountain Home Tuesday.
Mountain Home's Alisa Plumlee hit the winning jumper with 24 seconds left to give the Lady Bombers the win.
Also on tap Friday will be the West Memphis/Cabot girls matchup at Cabot.
West Memphis is ranked No. 1 in the state and leads the East with a perfect 6-0 mark.
The Cabot girls, always in the running for a state playoff spot, are second at 5-1, but are not ranked.
A Cabot victory could alter the entire second-half race. And even though the Cabot senior boys may be only pretenders for a postseason spot rather than contenders, the rest of the East teams should not overlook the Panthers.
Just ask the Searcy Lions.
The Lions avoided an upset Tuesday night.
After trailing Cabot 45-38 Tuesday with 3:57 to play, the Lions scored 19 consecutive points over the final four minutes to take a 57-47 victory over Cabot in AAAAA-East Conference play.
At West Memphis Tuesday, Blytheville had no answer for the eighth-ranked and very physical West Memphis Blue Devils.
Blytheville (8-9, 3-3 AAAAA-East) shot just 15 of 44 (34 percent) from the field for the game and only shot eight free throws, making five in a 53-38 loss to the Blue Devils.
The Blue Devils have allowed only 40 or more points once this season, against Forrest City earlier in the year.
It should be noted that Blytheville played the game without starting point guard Demarcus Luster.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Barring a matchup in the postseason conference tournament, tonight's meeting between the Forrest City Blue and White Junior High basketball teams will be the final game in the three-year series.
Beginning in the fall, Forrest City Junior High will return to just one team in basketball, football and track.
Tonight's final matchup between the Blue and White boys' and girls' teams will be the seventh.
The three-game set will tip at 5 p.m. at Mustang Arena.
The Blue Mustangs have won the last four matchups after the White Mustangs won the first two games of the 2000-01 season.
In girls play, the Blue and White teams have split their pair of games each of the past two years but the Blue Lady Mustangs have won both games this season.
Going into tonight's game, the Blue Mustangs are 9-4 and the Blue Lady Mustangs are 4-8 while the White Mustangs are 1-11 and the White Lady Mustangs are 4-11.
Overall, since going to two teams, the two Blue Mustangs teams are a combined 33-65 while the two White Mustang teams are a combined 27-75 in regular season and tournament games played.
Jimmy Williams coaches both the Blue boys and girls teams while Sonny Shields coaches the White boys and Monty Thornton coaches the White girls.
The district adopted the two-team format in each of the three sports to start the 2000-01 season and designated the teams Blue and White.
On Jan. 22, the Forrest City School Board voted 5-1 to end the two-team format on a recommendation by Athletic Director Mike Bender.
The district adopted the dual system on the premise that more children would have an opportunity to participate in school sports and get more parents involved in the games.
Bender said after several months of polling the schools coaches and weighing the pros and cons, he found "the costs for the dual program are outweighing the benefits.
"The game attendance has been so low that we don't make enough basically to pay for the lights and the officials," Bender added. "It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out it is not working like we want it to."
Using the two-team format, it meant that one of the two junior high basketball teams would have a home game each Monday and Thursday during the season, meaning that during certain weeks of the season, Mustang Arena would be hosting basketball games both of those nights as well as on Tuesday and Friday when the senior high teams played home games.
Registration for the Forrest City Recreation Department's youth baseball and softball summer leagues has started and will continue through March 14.
Fees for each of the two youth leagues are $15 per player for those youths living inside the Forrest City city limits and $25 for those outside the city limits.
Registration for the sdult men and women's slow-pitch softball league is under way now as well.
For more information or to register for either of the leagues, contact Kenneth Taylor at (870) 633-3667.