RIVER VALLEY GAME OF THE WEEK

Charleston, Cedarville clash in 3A-4 showdown

Charleston travels to Cedarville tonight for a key boys game in the 3A-4.

Charleston (7-3, 7-1), Paris (13-7, 8-2) and Cedarville (11-11, 8-3) are bunched up at the top of the conference standings with Booneville (10-5, 6-3) also close.

Booneville handed Charleston its first conference defeated last week when Jace Washburn scored with 12 seconds left, and Raiden Ferguson drew a charge with 2.4 seconds left on the defensive end to seal a 48-47 win.

“They’re all big for us right now,” Charleston coach B.J. Ross said. “We had won seven games in a row and had a slip up the other night. We knew it was about to happen. Our last three games we went overtime, overtime and lost by one. It was our own self-inflicted wounds, what we did to ourselves.”

The Tigers had to postpone conference games in December due to the football team making its championship run into mid-December.

Beginning with Thursday’s trip to Danville, Charleston will play six conference games in nine days. Next week, Charleston travels to Two Rivers on Monday, hosts Paris on Tuesday, travels to Hackett on Friday and Saturday travel to Cossatot River.

The two positions in the conference standings are important since the top two earn berths into the semifinals of the 3A-4 district tournament at Paris along with an automatic berth into the Class 3A Region 1 Tournament at West Fork.

5A-WEST

The 5A-West is scrambling to still schedule the games from January 24.

The entire conference just penciled those games into the built-in makeup date of January 31, but those games were also postponed due to this week’s winter weather.

Now, Alma will host Greenwood on Feb. 8 along with Siloam Springs traveling to Van Buren. That’s in addition to the regularly scheduled games on Feb. 7 and Feb. 10, making a three-game week for all the team in the conference.

Today, Van Buren hosts Greenbrier, Alma hits the long road to Harrison, and Greenwood travels to Russellville.

6A-WEST

The Battle of Rogers Avenue, round two, will be played on Wednesday, Feb. 8.

The game is part of a five-game stretch in eight days for Northside to begin the final half of the double round- robin schedule in the 6A-West.

The Grizzlies ( 13- 9, 4- 4) host league- leading Bentonville West (18-2, 7-1) today, travel to Rogers Heritage on Saturday for a makeup game, travels to Springdale Har-Ber on Feb. 7, travels to Southside on Feb. 8 and hosts Fayetteville on Feb. 10.

For the Lady Bears (17-3, 7-1), the stretch could be a season-defining one.

Har-Ber (13-7, 7-2) and Heritage (17-4, 6-2) loom close behind.

THAT FIGURES

6- Games for Charleston in the 3A-4 over a nine-day stretch, beginning on Thursday

3- Game lead by the Lavaca Golden Arrows with three games to play in the 2A-4

2- Game lead by the Lamar Lady Warriors in the 3A-5 over Dover, which they play on Feb. 6