With the final week of the regular season upon them, the four boys varsity basketball squads from Adams County found out their postseason assignments on Sunday afternoon when the Southeast District Athletic Board released the Division III and IV sectional/district tournament brackets.
The county has two teams competing in the Division IV tourney and the highest seeded local team is Coach Josh Arey and his Peebles Indians, whose 15-5 current record will makes them a four seed, but the road back to the regional tournament is not going to be an easy one for Arey’s troops. The Indians will begin play in a sectional title game on Feb. 23 at 8 p.m. at Northwest High School, where they will face number 5 seed Portsmouth Clay, who stood at 13-4 at the time of the drawing. A win there sends the Indians on to the Convocation Center at Ohio University and the district tournament and a likely match up with number 1 seeded Trimble. That game is set for Feb. 29 at 6:15 at the Convo.
The other county team in Division IV is the Manchester Greyhounds and first-year head coach Kyle Pertuset was right on target when he told the Defender how he thought his tourney draw would turn out. As Pertuset predicted on Saturday, the Hounds (6-14) are a number 9 seed and will face fellow member of the Southern Hills Athletic Conference and number 8 seed Fairfield on Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. at Northwest High School in an opening round sectional contest. As Pertuset also predicted, the winner of that game will face number 1 seeded Sciotoville East in a sectional final on Feb. 23 at 6:15 p.m., also at Northwest.
In Division IV, Coach Nathan Copas and his North Adams Green Devils (13-7) are a number 7 seed and will face number 10 seeded Portsmouth West in a sectional semi-final match up on Feb. 16 at 8 p.m. at Waverly High School. A win there means that the Devils will move to the sectional championship game where they will likely see number 2 seeded Lynchburg from the SHAC. The Mustangs have only two losses on the season and one of them came at the hands of the Green Devils back on Jan. 15. A possible North Adams-Lynchburg match up would take place on Feb. 20 at 6 p.m. at Waverly with a trip to the Convo on the line.
Finally in Division IV, head coach Josh White and his young West Union Dragons (3-17) are a number 14 seed and face a tough task in their sectional opener, facing number 3 seeded Portsmouth on Feb. 17 at 6:15 p.m. at Waverly High School. If they pull off the upset, the Dragons will be back at Waverly on Feb. 20 at 8:30 p.m. to face the winner of Eastern Brown-Paint Valley.
All of the Division II, III, and IV brackets can be found at www.seodab.org.
