Most of the ice and snow throughout southwest Mississippi has melted, but its impact is still being felt by a number of local basketball teams.
At the top of that list are the Parklane Pioneers, who had not one but two games canceled during this week’s winter storm, forcing them into a difficult stretch to close the regular season.
The Pioneers (9-9, 7-3 MAIS AAA Div. I) will play host to Copiah Academy tonight to begin a string of four games in five days. Two of those games are on the road, culminating in more than 420 miles of travel roundtrip.
After tonight’s game, Parklane will travel to take on Lamar School tomorrow afternoon. The Pioneers will return home Monday for a showdown with Oak Forest but hit the road again on Tuesday to play Bowling Green.
Parklane will close its regular season schedule next Friday with a trip to Jackson Prep, adding another 150 miles to the team’s travel log.
Parklane head coach Chris Weaver, who hasn’t been able to practice with his team since Monday due to school closings, said he will try and keep practices shorter in order to preserve his players’ energy for the final stretch.
“We will have to shorten up practice, save their legs,” Weaver said. “Pretty much everything (we run) is in and done. We just got to save the kids’ energy as much as we can.”
Weaver did find a positive in the schedule shakeup.
“It helps prepare us for tournaments,” Weaver said. The Pioneers will begin their 2014 playoff run in the MAIS AAA Div. I tournament, beginning Feb. 10.
“In tournaments we’ll play on back-to-back days a lot, on the road a lot,” Weaver continued. “So there are positives and negatives. We just have to weather the storm.”
The Pioneers have turned their season around since a difficult run through the non-conference portion of their schedule. Parklane began the season 2-6, but have rallied to win 70 percent of their Division I games to this point.
But even though all six Division I team qualify for the tournament, only the top three teams advance to the overall AAA tournament. How Parklane closes out the regular season will determine where it is seeded in the playoffs, and if it will be able to survive and advance fresh off a hectic final week of the regular season.
Weaver said he likes the way his team has played since the start of Division I action and hopes his team can continue its run against a slew of difficult opponents.
“We are looking to continue in the direction we’ve been heading the last week or so,” he said. “We continue to play gritty ballgames, give good effort. We will have to work hard to get through this stretch, but we had three games last week and handled it very well. We just need to keep working, keep playing hard.”
