The Forrest City Mustangs have been in the state tournament "mode" for the past month of the regular conference season, according to head coach Dwight Lofton.
Today, that mode becomes a reality when the Mustangs open play at the Class AAAAA State Tournament in a first-round matchup against No. 4 ranked El Dorado.
That game will be played at 2:30 p.m., at the new North Little Rock High School arena.
Forrest City is the No. 4 seed from the AAAAA-East while El Dorado is the top-seeded from the AAAAA-South.
"There is a reason why El Dorado is ranked fourth and are 22-3 for the year," Lofton said. "They are a good team. But, when we play the kind of basketball I know we can play, we're not bad either. I know one thing...our guys are not ready to stop playing and they don't want the season to end today."
It appears to be a mismatch on paper, as most first-round games between No. 1 and No. 4 seeds are, but four seeds have advanced in the past.
"We want history to repeat itself and we want to move on to play again Friday," Lofton said.
The Mustangs are 11-13 overall for the year but finished the year by winning five of their final seven games and ended with a three-game win streak to clinch the fourth seed from the conference.
In first-round games played Tuesday, West Memphis, the AAAAA-East conference champion ran all over Little Rock Central 55-46 to advance to a second-round game on Thursday against either Pine Bluff or Fort Smith Southside.
Larry Bray scored 18 points to lead his West Memphis team past Central.
Bill Berry led the scoring for Central (14-13), with 12 points.
Also Tuesday, Fayetteville topped Lake Hamilton 72-50 behind the shooting of Razorback signee Ronnie Brewer, who scored 17 points.
The Bulldogs (24-3) will play again Friday against the winner of a Wednesday contest between Conway and Jonesboro.
Brandon Payton and Matt Vining shared scoring honors for Lake Hamilton (9-18), with 11 points each.
The last boys game of the day featured Little Rock Parkview against Fort Smith Northside, with Parkview emerging a 53-38 winner.
In second-round action Friday, the Parkview Patriots, winners of this year's Rumble on the Ridge tournament played at Forrest City, will take on the winner of a Thursday game between Searcy and Watson Chapel.
*In girls' play Tuesday, Tamala Turner scored the points but Jocelyn Love stole the ball for West Memphis on Tuesday as the Lady Devils downed Mount St. Mary 57-29.
Turner led with 16 points, but Love stole the ball seven times for West Memphis (25-2). The Lady Devils play again Thursday against the winner of a Wednesday game between Sheridan and Fort Smith Southside.
Mount St. Mary (18-10) got 15 points from Shelby Vadjunec.
Fort Smith Northside downed Lake Hamilton, 61-24, with Ashley Coleman leading the way with 14 points.
Northside (26-3) will play again Friday, against the victor in a Wednesday matchup between Bryant and Jonesboro.
In the third girls game Tuesday, Bentonville beat Little Rock Parkview, 56-52.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
NEWARK -- Hughes didn't even have time to enjoy the state tournament atmosphere Tuesday.
The Charleston Tigers made certain of that.
Charleston (22-6) controlled the tempo of their first-round state tournament game against Hughes (18-7) and sent the Blue Devils home by taking a 56-53 win at Newark.
In a very "un-Hughes" like performance, the Blue Devils never really looked comfortable against Charleston, never found their rhythm and never put together a strong run to wrestle control of the game from the Tigers and never led, even though the team forced three ties, the final one coming with 2:20 to play in the game.
"We just didn't play like a Hughes team," said second-year coach Brad Brannen. "We looked lost and just never showed any fire. They (Charleston) controlled the pace of the game and that was to their benefit."
Hughes also found themselves in serious foul trouble late in the game, which hurt their usually man-to-man swarming defensive effort when Charleston let the air out of the ball in the fourth period.
In a game slowed by 71 whistled fouls, the Blue Devils converted just 15-of-31 free throws while Charleston hit 24-of-40 chances.
In the final game of his Hughes career, senior guard Jermaine Davis led Hughes with 18 points. Sophomore David Dowden had 14.
Three Hughes starters -- Dowden, Kevin Hatton and Johnny Washington -- fouled out along with sixth man Courtley London. Davis and Malcolm Curne finished the game with four fouls each.
Both teams were ice cold in the first period as Charleston led 5-3 headed into the second period where each picked up the scoring pace somewhat as Charleston outscored the Blue Devils 18-to-16 to lead 22-19 at the half.
Charleston opened the third period with a 10-to-4 run to push their lead to 32-23 and went on to lead 45-38 to begin the fourth period.
The Blue Devils cut the Tigers' lead to 45-43 with 6:30 to play when Ayo Ogunsakin hit one of two free throws. That's when Charleston began to spread the floor and then got a big three-pointer from sophomore Zac McClure to push the lead back to 50-45 with 4:20 left.
Ogunsakin's turn-around jumper, a layup by Davis and a free throw by Curne tied the game at 50-50.
Hughes managed just three more points over the final 1:22, another two by Davis and a free throw by Clifton Smith.
Trailing 54-53 with 38 seconds to play, Hughes had a chance when Charleston's Phillip Terry turned the ball over and Davis missed a three-footer from inside the paint with the battle for the rebound going out of bounds to Charleston with 4.4 seconds to play. Terry hit two more free throws to make the final.
Drew Hill led Charleston with 18 points while Phillip Terry added 17.
Charleston will face the winner of the Camden Harmony-Grove/Bradford game Friday at 2:30 p.m.
In other boys' games Tuesday at Newark, Melbourne downed Parker's Chapel 56-50 and Pangburn ousted Gurdon 47-38.
In girls' play, Turrell defeated Magazine 62-48, Union downed Sloan-Hendrix 58-37 and Westside Greers Ferry defeated Dierks 73-58.