High school basketball

Weather delays hit tournaments

A wintry weather mix that moved into Arkansas on Wednesday caused officials to reshuffle the schedules for the high school basketball state tournaments.

The Arkansas Activities Association postponed all seven of the high school basketball tournaments early Wednesday morning because of inclement weather that was expected to hit all across the state.

Three of the tournaments -- Class 5A in Paragould, Class 3A at Cossatot River (Polk County) and Class 1A in Nashville (Howard County) -- started Tuesday.

Four other state tournaments -- Class 7A at Springdale Har-Ber, Class 6A in Siloam Springs, Class 4A in Ozark and Class 2A in Pangburn -- were scheduled to begin Wednesday.

Weather permitting, all seven tournaments will continue today.

"The decision was based on a safety issue," Lance Taylor, executive director of the AAA, said in a new release. "We wanted to make sure that everyone could travel to our state locations without hazardous driving conditions."

Snow and ice began covering Northwest Arkansas on Wednesday morning. Paragould began experiencing sleet by 2:30 p.m., and parts of northeast Arkansas are expecting 3 to 6 inches of snow before daybreak today.

Today's forecast doesn't appear much better for some of the tournaments.

Temperatures in Paragould aren't expected to be above freezing until Friday. Highs in Springdale and are expected to be 34 and 37, respectively.

Wednesday's weather was a continuation of what the state has experienced over the past three weeks. Weather forced the cancellation of several district tournament championship games and it caused the majority of the regional tournaments to be delayed by at least one day.

If the tournaments are able to play today, the semifinals of all events -- with the exception of the Class 2A tournament -- will be played Sunday, according to the AAA news release. Semifinals will start at 12:30 p.m.

The Class 2A state tournament, which already had been delayed a day because of weather problems during regional tournaments, will play its semifinals Monday, starting at 1 p.m.

Championship games are scheduled to be played March 12-14 at the Bank of the Ozarks Arena in Hot Springs.

Sports on 03/05/2015

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