South Iron and Ellington Clash in Boys and Girls Basketball Doubleheader on J98

(Ellington) Conference foes take to the hardwood in Ellington tonight as the Whippets prepare to host the South Iron Panthers in both girls and boys basketball on J98.

On the girls’ side, both teams come into tonight’s matchup at 2-1 with one-score losses in the championships of the respective tournaments they just played in.

Ellington lost in double-overtime 62-61 to Twin Rivers in the Lady Dawg Classic at Van Buren while South Iron fell to West County 48-46 in the Valley Caledonia Tournament.

These two teams played in a pair of classics against one another last year.

They split the meetings with South Iron taking the first in the regular season 35-32 and Ellington winning in the Black River League Tournament championship 53-51.

Lady Whippets head coach David Burrows says they need to execute their game plan precisely because the margin for error will be slim.

Lady Panthers head coach Lawrence Graves says he knows it will be a tough game.

The boys’ teams for South Iron and Ellington already met in the Arcadia Valley Thanksgiving Tournament back on November 24th and it was a rout for the Panthers 92-33.

Since then the Whippets have gone 2-1 to improve to 3-2 and have continued to look strong in their wins – scoring 72 points per game while allowing just 52 over those three.

Ellington head coach Jeremy Peterson says they cannot allow South Iron easy points.