After losing both junior high boys and girls games in Paris the night before, the senior high Paris teams traveled to Booneville on Tuesday night to play an important conference game with the Lady Bearcats and the Bearcats. The results were the same, Booneville won both conference games and sent Paris home scratching their heads as to what has happened in the past two weeks. The Paris Eagles boys team lost to Booneville by a score of 56-34, and the Lady Eagles were defeated 58-32.
The Lady Eagles, who had a very good month of January, have now apparently lost their momentum and have dropped their last two games, both of which have been on the road. The Lady Eagles lost at Atkins on January 28. Now, following last night’s road loss at Booneville, Paris must regroup and do it quickly as they will again play on the road at Jessieville on Friday night.
The Lady Eagles remain in fourth place in the conference with the loss of Atkins to Lamar on Tuesday night. Paris is now alone in fourth place, and it appears most likely that Paris must try to maintain fourth place now that they are two games behind Jessieville who is in third place. To finish third, the Lady Eagles must defeat Jessieville on Friday night and hope for some help from the rest of the conference to give the Lady Lions another conference loss. Either way, it looks like there is a good chance that the Lady Eagles will play Atkins in the first round of the senior district tournament. Paris’s first round opponents will not be determined until the end of the conference season and the final standings are known. If Atkins is the first round opponent, Paris must find ways to get more offensive production against the Lady Red Devils than they did in their last meeting.
After Tuesday night’s games around the conference, the standings are:
Lamar 12-0
Perryville 8-3
Jessieville 7-4
Paris 5-6
Atkins 5-7
It should also be noted that Atkins has played 12 conference games to date and Paris has played 11. This means that Paris will have to win one additional game going down the stretch to hold on to fourth place in the loss column.
The Paris senior boys team also suffered a double-digit loss last evening as the Eagles had no answer for the Booneville defense. Paris continues to have scoring issues, and if things were not bad enough for this team, senior Nick Bazyk left the game in the second half with an apparent injury. Paris has missed the scoring and pressure defense of Dylan Krigbaum for the past several games as he too has been out due to injury. The potential combined loss of both Krigbaum and Bazyk is devastating to an Eagles team that has fought hard all season and has needed the scoring of both players to stay in games late. Bazyk’s status is unknown to Resident Press as of the publication time of this article.
The Paris junior Eagles and Lady Eagles will play on Thursday night at Paris gymnasium in a make-up game versus Perryville. Like their senior high counterparts, the junior high teams lost a pair of games to Booneville on Monday night and need to quickly regroup to play a tough Perryville program. Paris finishes with Perryville on Thursday and will go on the road to Jessieville for their final conference regular season game on Friday. Paris will have to play three days in a row as the first round of the district tournament will begin on Saturday. The junior high district tournament will be held at Perryville High School.
For Paris fans, there is a lot of basketball left this week and beyond. Both the senior high teams and the junior high teams need your support now more than ever. It will begin tomorrow night in Paris, and the junior high teams need a big crowd for the important games with Perryville.
The best way to get the bad taste out from a loss is with a win, and for Paris, they have the opportunity to play soon and get those needed victories. The Eagles and Lady Eagles are at a crossroads in the season, and the next three days may tell us how they will respond. Paris fans will look for their teams to bear down and take it to their opponents following the disappointing losses over the past week.
