By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
Area teams will be going in various directions for holiday basketball tournaments, while the Holiday Hoopla at Southeast Alamance includes several teams from Alamance County.
Other destinations include tournaments at Union Pines, Northwood, Asheboro, and Kernersville.
- The Holiday Hoopla originated at Eastern Alamance, but this is the second year that the tournament will be held at Southeast Alamance.
Southeast Alamance and Western Alamance are entered in the boys’ and girls’ brackets, while defending champion Burlington Christian Academy will play in the boys’ bracket and Eastern Alamance will be in the girls’ field.
The tournament will be held Friday, Saturday, and Monday with eight games each day. Games begin at 9:30 a.m. each day, with the last games slated for 8:00 p.m. tip-offs.
Here are the opening-day girls’ matchups: Northeast Guilford vs. Chapel Hill, Durham Jordan vs. Western Alamance, Green Level vs. Eastern Alamance, and Orange vs. Southeast Alamance.
The Green Level girls’ team won the 2023 Holiday Hoopla. The only other returning girls’ teams are Eastern Alamance, Orange, and Southeast Alamance.
The first-round boys’ pairings are: Carrboro vs. BCA, Voyager Academy vs. Western Alamance, Apex vs. Cedar Ridge, and East Chapel Hill vs. Southeast Alamance.
The boys’ field also has just three teams (BCA, Southeast Alamance, Western Alamance) back from last year’s tournament. The Eastern Alamance boys won’t be in a holiday tournament.
- Boys’ teams from Cummings and Southern Alamance are heading to the Union Pines event (in Cameron) that runs from Thursday through Saturday. It’s called the Vikings Christmas Clash, a first-time tournament.
Southern Alamance opens against Overhills at noon Thursday, while the first game for Cummings comes against Bonnie Cone Leadership Academy out of Huntersville at 2:00 p.m. The other first-day games are Kernersville Glenn vs. North Moore followed by Montgomery Central vs. Union Pines.
- The boys’ and girls’ teams from Williams will be in a second-year tournament in Asheboro, with games Thursday through Saturday. It’s the first time for the Bulldogs in the event.
Williams girls’ coach Jason Cheek said after his team wasn’t in a holiday tournament last season he wanted to be involved this year.
“A two-week stretch, you don’t have anything to practice for,” he said, referring to lack of focus in some sessions. “We will never not play in a tournament over Christmas again.”
Eastern Guilford had conducted a holiday tournament for years, but that was discontinued last year. That’s part of the reason Williams didn’t have a tournament destination last December.
Cheek said the Bulldogs reached out to Asheboro tournament organizers and landed spots in the tournament for the boys’ and girls’ teams.
The Williams boys open against Southwestern Randolph, while other first-round pairings are Trinity vs. Thomasville, Randleman vs. Eastern Guilford, and Chatham Central vs. Asheboro.
The William girls start tournament play against Asheboro. Other matchups are Trinity vs. Lexington, Randleman vs. Eastern Guilford, and Southwestern Randolph vs. Chatham Charter.
“I like playing teams you don’t normally play,” Cheek said.
In the event, there’s one Randolph County team in every game on the first day.
- Southern Alamance’s girls are in Northwood’s First Bank Charger Classic in Pittsboro. That tournament runs Friday, Saturday and Monday. The Patriots open against Southern Durham.
- River Mill is entered in the North Carolina Leadership Academy Tournament in Kernersville with a first-round boys’ matchup against Providence Grove.
