19th St. Joseph Classic scheduled for this week

Photo by Hunter Brooks

By Hunter Brooks and Abigail Hodgson

UCA Sportswriting

St. Joseph will host the 19th annual St. Joseph Classic starting today at the St. Joseph Family Activity Center.

The eight-team tournament (with divisions for boys and girls) will be a classic bracket format with each team guaranteed to play at least two games. 

Today's schedule includes Lonoke vs. Guy-Perkins girls at 4:30 p.m., Marshall vs. Mayflower boys at 5:45; Vilonia vs. Mayflower girls at 7 and Perryville boys against Guy-Perkins at 8:15.

Tuesday's schedule will include Perryville against Marshall girls at 4:30, followed by Lonoke-Vilonia boys at 5:45, St. Joseph-Hazen girls at 7 and St. Joe-Hazen boys at 8:15.

First-round winners will advance to Wednesday's second round. Losers will drop to the consolation bracket Thursday. The tournament will conclude Saturday with fifth-place, third-place and championship games.

The Lady Bulldogs are 6-1, having lost for the first time this season against Greenbrier.

 Coach Chris Kordsmeier is confident that his team will compete well against the other schools.

“We hope to make a good run in the classic,” he said. “We can gain some momentum and experience for the rest of the season.”

Hazen, the Bulldogs' opening opponent, has yet to play a game all season. 

St. Joseph head coach Brent Bruich said 

“As a coach, it’s hard to play a team in its first game of the season,” St. Joe boys coach Brent Bruich said. “We have nothing to go off of about them and it’s a complete unknown. But the good thing is we have a few games under our belt, and we’ve got some kinks out. We don’t know anything about them other than they’re quick and athletic.”

St. Joseph also will play a non-tournament game Friday at home against Rose Bud. Bruich said the potential of playing four games in five days would benefit the team.

“It will be good for us,” he said. “We will see different styles and teams. We want to win so we can have an extra day of preparation. We’re going to play a lot of games in a lot of days. We will really see how deep our bench is. It will prepare us for regionals and hopefully the state tournament where we will have to play quick turnaround games. We’ll see it all this week.”

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