The Lions Den is expected to be packed Friday night for Franklin County basketball’s regular season finale against archrival Hart County.
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Seniors Kalyn Jinks, Qua Jones, Rose Boyd, Titlan Wells, Canaan Mayfield, Micah Roebuck, Carter Alexander, Titus Brown and Avery McGarity will be honored tonight during Senior Night ceremonies.
The Lions Den is expected to be packed Friday night for Franklin County basketball’s regular season finale against archrival Hart County.
The rivalry will bring folks out, but both the boys and girls games will be key ones for seeding in the upcoming Region 8AAA tournament.
Games are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. for girls and 8:30 p.m. for boys.
The Franklin County boys come into the game in third place in the region standings.
Hart County is holding onto first place despite a loss Tuesday to Jefferson in Jefferson.
Franklin defeated Hart in their first meeting of the year.
The seeds are important for the region tournament because the top two teams get byes to the region semifinals and automatic bids to the state tournament.
Franklin is also trying not to drop into fourth place.
The Lions are just one game ahead of Monroe Area in the standings, but Monroe holds the tiebreaker.
Franklin fell to the Purple Hurricanes Friday for the second time this season by a score of 73-68.
The Lady Lions are in a similar situation.
Franklin will come into the game tied for fifth in the region. Hart is in third.
The Lady Lions missed an opportunity to move up in the rankings after a 53-50 overtime loss Friday at Monroe Area.
The game was controversial.
Monroe hit a shot just inside of half-court to tie the game at the buzzer, Coach John Strickland said, and made a three-pointer at the buzzer to win.
“This came after Monroe took a timeout and the official scorer had them with no timeouts,” the coach said. “The referee overruled the official bookkeeper and did not charge them with a technical. They kept the ball before making the three. We had gotten a five-second inbounds call and the official gave them a timeout after the lead official had called five seconds.”
Strickland said that depending on how Friday’s games play out, there could be a four-way tie for fourth place.
In that case, a tiebreaker would be used to determine seeding.
The sixth and seventh-place teams will play Monday for a chance to advance to the quarterfinals.
The Region 8AAA tournaments will start Tuesday.
The top two teams in the boys and girls standings get a bye to the semifinals.
The winners of the play-in games will play the third-seeded team, and the fourth and fifth place teams will play in the quarterfinals.
Look for more details on the region tournament following Friday’s games at www.franklincountycitizen.com and on Facebook.