Senior night comes quickly

Senior Night is always a special night, no matter how successful or unsuccessful a season it has been in any sport.

As a sports writer, you see these names start floating across your desk when they are in third- and fourth-grade playing in different leagues through our youth sports programs.

Then, inevitably, the kids get older, bigger and taller (most of them), and then we end up at senior night, just like we did last Friday night for the Siloam Springs boys and girls basketball teams.

Time sure goes fast sometimes doesn’t it? I am seeing that with my own kids.

These seniors have been a fun group of kids to cover over the years and I’m excited to see what they’ll do with their future endeavors.

The Panthers and Lady Panthers will most likely be hitting the road for 6A-West Conference Tournament games on Saturday.

As of presstime, the locations, opponents and times had not been officially confirmed, but all that is set to come down sometime Wednesday morning after Tuesday night’s games were completed.

And the results of Saturday’s 6A-West Tournament games will likely be too late for our Siloam Sunday deadlines, so for updates on the Panthers and Lady Panthers, check with my Twitter account — @NWAGraham — or the Northwest Arkansas DemocratGazette. The same will be the case for Round 2 on Tuesday evening.

It’s not the final home games of the season, but the John Brown University basketball teams will be honoring their seniors on Saturday as part of their doubleheader against Science and Arts (Okla.).

It’s also parents weekend at JBU, so that means there should be some pretty darn good crowds on hand at Bill George Arena as the Golden Eagles take on the Drovers.

The Golden Eagles basketball teams will play their final regular season home games on Thursday, Feb. 23, against Texas Wesleyan, but JBU wanted to avoid doing senior night on a Thursday night, and that’s the right call.

Tipoff for the women’s game this Saturday is scheduled for 3 p.m., followed by the men’s game at 5 p.m.

And speaking of those basketball teams, it’s been a nice season for both the JBU men’s and women’s teams. The men are just two games out of first place, believe it or not, as there’s a logjam of six teams in front of the Golden Eagles. Three of them are 9-5 in league play and three more are 8-6. JBU men sit at 7-7 and though the Golden Eagles still have work to do it’s not out of the realm for a top four finish.

The JBU women are having a great season — 18-7 overall and 10-4 in SAC play — and are a really fun team to watch.

Go see both teams play if you get the chance.

— Graham Thomas is the managing editor for the HeraldLeader. He can be reached at gthomas@nwadg.com. The opinions expressed are those of the author.