FAYETTEVILLE — The latest line of wintry weather led to school cancellations throughout Northwest Arkansas for a second-straight day Tuesday.
The snow and icy conditions also forced the postponement of all area high school basketball games Tuesday, leaving many teams in lower classifications scrambling as district tournaments are fast approaching.
In Classes 4A and below, regular season play is scheduled to conclude Feb. 14, with district tournament play set to begin the following week. For many teams, this means fi tting in as many as four games over the next two weeks. But with Tuesday’s games postponed — and more wintry weather expected this week — getting all the games played might not be easy.
“We’ve got this week and next week to get the games in,” said Elkins girls basketball coach Monica Wells. “We’ve still got a few days to play the games, but the biggest thing that affects is is our junior high district tournament. That starts next week and that will make it tougher to get in those games.”
Elkins had its game at West Fork postponed Tuesday. The teams play in the 3A-1 West Conference and have not scheduled a makeup date yet.
“Our conference has always been good about working together to get games in,” Wells said. “We still have some days to get in the games, so we’ll just do the best we can.”
Decatur, which plays in the 2A-4 West, postponed its home game against Hackett on Tuesday. Boys coach John Unger said one possibility in helping complete the senior high schedule in the conference would be to scrap the junior high district tournament altogether next week.
“If the snow continues and it gets really bad, one thing that’s been put on the table is to not have the junior high tournament,” Unger said. “That hasn’t been decided yet.”
Teams in the 2A-4 West Conference — like Eureka Springs — are often forced to miss school for days at a time when winter weather hits. This puts the entire district in a bind when trying to make up games.
“Our district tournament is at Eureka Springs,” Unger said. “That could be a nightmare.”
Teams in the 4A-1 Conference — which include Lincoln, Prairie Grove, Farmington, Pea Ridge, Gentry and Gravette — implemented a rule a few years ago that mandates postponed games must be rescheduled at the earliest date possible. Farmington boys’ coach Beau Thompson said this has helped the league from falling behind schedule leading into district tournament play.
“As soon as there’s a day you can make a game up, you’ve got to try to make it up,” Thompson said. “So if you have a game canceled on a Tuesday and you can play on that Wednesday or Thursday, that’s when you try and play.”
Thompson knows full well about playing catch up at the end of the regular season to get all the games in before district tournament play. A couple of years ago, Farmington was forced to play four games in one week before the postseason began.
“If we have to, we can start the district tournament on Wednesday instead of Tuesday,” said Thompson, who will serve as the 4A-1 tournament host. “We could even play games that final Friday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday if we had to.
“It’s a mess, but it will all work out.”