The high school basketball postseason begins this week for Watson Chapel and many other southeast Arkansas schools.
Monticello will host the 4A Region 4 tournament Wednesday through Saturday at Billie Arena. Boys and girls squads from Watson Chapel, Monticello, Warren and Star City will face teams from southwest Arkansas’ Conference 4A-7.
Other southeast Arkansas teams will participate in various other regional tournaments outside of the area.
The Watson Chapel girls and Warren boys enter regionals as the Conference 4A-8 champions. The Watson Chapel boys and Star City girls are the second-place teams. The Warren girls and Star City boys finished third, while both Monticello squads claimed the fourth and finals spots at regionals.
The vital first round games will take place Wednesday and Thursday, with the winners advancing to next week’s Class 4A state tournament, while the losers are eliminated. Friday’s semifinals and Saturday’s championship and third place games will determine seeding at state.
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The Monticello girls will tip off tournament play against 4A-7 champ Nashville at 4 p.m., with the Monticello boys playing 4A-7 champ Magnolia at 5:30. The Watson Chapel girls will face Camden Fairview at 7, with the Warren boys finishing the opening day by facing Arkadelphia at 8:30.
Day two will begin at 4 p.m. with the Star City girls playing Arkadelphia and the Watson Chapel boys facing Nashville at 5:30. The Warren girls will then face De Queen at 7, with the Star City boys wrapping up the first round against Camden Fairview at 8:30.
Elsewhere in 4A, the Stuttgart girls won the Conference 4A-6 championship and will face Brookland in the opening game of the 4A Region 2 tournament at Highland, tipping off at 4 p.m. Wednesday. The Ricebird boys, who finished second, will face Jonesboro Westside on Thursday at 8:30 p.m.
Southeast Arkansas’ 3A teams will play in the 3A Region 4 event at Centerpoint. The McGehee girls come in as the No. 1 seed, followed by No. 2 Dumas, No. 3 Drew Central and No. 4 Rison. For the boys, Helena-West Helena Central claimed the No. 1 seed in Conference 3A-8. McGehee comes in as the No. 2, followed by No. 3 Dumas and No. 4 Rison.
In Class 2A, the Fordyce boys and Woodlawn girls will both be No. 2 seeds at the 2A Region 4 playoffs at Poyen. Both the Dermott boys and girls will be No. 3 seeds at the 1A Region 3 tourney at Guy-Perkins.
Full schedules and brackets for all regionals may be found through the Arkansas Activities Association website.
Classes 5A and 6A do not hold regional tournaments, with the top four teams from each conference qualifying directly for their respective state tournaments.
The AAA state basketball tournaments begin next week. Class 6A will be played at Springdale, 5A at Greene County Tech, 4A at Magnolia, 3A at North Arkansas College, 2A at Cedar Ridge and 1A at Trumann.