On a stormy Friday night at the Tiger Dome in West Fork, the Charleston Lady Tigers defeated the West Fork Lady Tigers 46-26. Charleston, behind a stifling second half defense and efficient ball control offense, led almost the entire game before pulling out to a big lead in the second half. The Lady Tigers played with great energy while being patient on the offensive end and taking high percentage shots. The Lady Tigers offense took the ball away from West Fork and limited their scoring opportunities. Charleston coach Jason Rucker was pleased with his team’s performance. “I thought our defense was really good last night. I liked our team’s energy from tip-off to the end of the game.”
With the conference victory at West Fork, Charleston moves into first place. The Lady Tigers are now one half game ahead of Elkins who did not play on Friday. Charleston is now 13-2 overall and 4-0 in conference play. Elkins is 3-0 in conference. Going into last week, the Lady Tigers were ranked 9th in Class 3A in Arkansas and 39th overall in the state. Charleston’s only two losses of the year have been to Class 4A Pea Ridge and Class 6A Lake Hamilton. The Lady Tigers have posted wins over larger schools with athletic talent such as Searcy, Trumann, and Wynne. Charleston has important conference games with Lincoln and Elkins coming up over the last ten games of the season. But for now, it appears that the Lady Tigers are getting into top form as they focus their sights on playing their best basketball at post-season tournament time.
Immediately after the conclusion of the Lady Tigers game, the Charleston and West Fork boys teams took the court to begin warm-ups. After a few minutes on the court, the court-side scorers table announced that the game was being postponed due to severe weather. The announcement stated that the game would be made-up on a future date. The fans began to exit the Tiger Dome and head to their cars to go home. The Charleston at West Fork games were one of the few games in the area that attempted to play and were not cancelled earlier in the afternoon. The suspension in play occurred at approximately 7:50 p.m.
Charleston returns home on Tuesday, January 14 to play Waldron. Charleston has home games next week with Waldron on Tuesday and Mansfield on Friday. Senior girls and boys games will be played on both nights starting at 6 p.m.
On another note, Resident Press was just named as one of the newest members of the Arkansas Press Association. Resident Press would like to thank our loyal readers who have made this possible. Stay with Resident Press for high school basketball coverage on the road to the 2020 Class 3A state championship!
