Gyms go silent once again
With the Northwest Region’s basketball teams nearly all caught up on the district tournaments that had been delayed by last week’s two feet of snow, a new storm on Wednesday delayed four district finals in two districts.
The Cedar Run District boys and girls championships and the Commonwealth District boys and girls finals were each postponed and are likely to be made up on Friday.
“We’re kind of thinking [Thursday] is out of the question,” said Stonewall Jackson activities director Ira DeGrood, whose school will be the site of both Cedar Run District finals.
Speaking from his home on Wednesday night as snow was still accumulating in the area, Potomac AD Frank Higgins added that “there doesn’t look like much hope” for games to be played today.
The likeliest plan, though ADs stress that everything is day-to-day and tentative at this point, is for the games to be played Friday and the regional tournament to start as scheduled on Saturday.
“The county has said that on Friday morning Stonewall is a priority,” DeGrood said.
He said the parking lots will be cleared that day and the girls final would be played at 6 p.m., the boys at 7:30.
On the chance that the districts are able to play today, the Cedar Run girls and boys finals would be at 6 and 7:30 p.m. The Commonwealth girls final would be at Stafford at 4 p.m., the boys final at Culpeper at 4:30 or 5 p.m.
“That’s the plan for now,” Stafford AD Wes Bergazzi said.
According to Bergazzi, if today’s Commonwealth games are postponed, they will be played Friday afternoon at the same times.
Higgins also said playing the Cedar Run girls final on Saturday morning, followed by the first round of the regional tournament that night, is a last resort.
Because Franklin County, the Western Valley District’s second seed, would have to come north to play either Potomac or Osbourn, it’s possible that the district final could be held at 10 a.m. or noon.
Pushing back the start of the regional tournament to Monday or beyond does not look likely at this point.
“The word from the region,” Higgins said, “is whoever can play Saturday night play Saturday, and if not we’re just going to have to play [quarterfinals] Monday and [semifinals] Tuesday.
The regionals are scheduled to start with quarterfinals on Saturday, semifinals on Tuesday and finals on Thursday. The state tournament is supposed to start as scheduled on Saturday, March 8 and continue at Lynchburg’s Vines Center the following weekend.
Most of the regional matchups, planned for Saturday as of now, are set.
Gar-Field, the Cardinal district boys champion, will host Patrick Henry-Roanoke in the Northwest Region quarterfinals. Gar-Field beat the Patriots 64-56 in the third-place game of the Member One Holiday Hoopla Dec. 28 at the Salem Civic Center.
The Stonewall Jackson/Osbourn Park winner will host the Culpeper/Albemarle loser on that same side of the bracket. On the other side, Cardinal runner-up Woodbridge will travel to face Western Valley champion Halifax County and Potomac will travel to the winner of the Culpeper/Albemarle championship in the Commonwealth.
In the girls brackets, Osbourn Park will travel to Danville to play 22-1 George Washington in the quarterfinals. Cardinal District champion Forest Park will host the Albemarle/Stafford loser, while the winner of that game will entertain Woodbridge.
The remaining district finals to be played are as follows:
Cedar Run boys: Osbourn Park at Stonewall Jackson
Commonwealth boys: Albemarle at Culpeper
Cedar Run girls: Potomac vs. Osbourn at Stonewall Jackson
Commonwealth girls: Albemarle at Stafford
REGION B
A decision on the Region B boys semifinals, scheduled for today at Eastern Mennonite University, will be made this morning, tournament coordinator John Wymer said. Wymer said if the semifinals can’t be played today, they would be played Saturday at EMU, starting at 7 p.m. The final would then be Tuesday, with the site to be determined.
Brentsville, a 54-49 winner over Riverheads at EMU on Tuesday, will play William Campbell in one semifinal, while Luray will face Altavista in the other.
Sports editor David Fawcett contributed to this report.