Gospel Light Christian School will host a two-day basketball tournament Tuesday and Wednesday at Bank of the Ozarks Arena with other parochial schools and home-school teams from throughout the region.
Pool play in the Tournament of Champions will take place on Tuesday with games in a championship bracket and a consolation bracket on Wednesday. Both days will be punctuated with Champion Christian College men's basketball games at the end of the night.
"This is our fourth year to host high school and college basketball games at the Bank of the Ozarks arena," said Eric Capaci, pastor of Gospel Light Baptist Church and president of the college. "This was a vision I had in order to give young people and opportunity to play on a bigger stage. We deeply appreciate the staff at the Hot Springs Convention Center for helping us to make this possible."
Tuesday night will feature the first rematch between Champion (5-3) and National Park College (2-3) at 8 p.m. The Tigers outlasted the Nighthawks 108-102 on Nov. 28 in the first-ever, intracity, inter-collegiate athletic contest in Hot Springs.
"We are especially excited about Tuesday night's game," Capaci said. "It will be a rematch from the double-overtime thriller between Champion Christian and National Park College.
"That game was college basketball at its finest, right here in Hot Springs, Arkansas. We are hoping for a great crowd on Tuesday night, and, based on the first matchup between these two teams, it promises to be super exciting event."
Gospel Light (8-7) will open pool play on Tuesday at 10:20 a.m. against the Pulaski Academy Flames (8-7) home-school team. They are joined in the first pool by the Fort Smith Patriots (1-8) team of home-school students.
The Flames and Patriots will play at 2:20 p.m. The Lions will face Fort Smith at 5 p.m.
The second pool consists of Christian Ministries Academy (17-2), Southwest Christian Academy (8-0) in Little Rock and Heritage Baptist Academy from Cordova, Tenn. Southwest and Heritage will match up at 3:40 p.m. Heritage and Christian Ministries will close pool play at 6:20 p.m.
"There is a cost involved in hosting the tournament, so we are dependent upon ticket sales to be able to continue to host this event," Capaci said. "The cost of the tickets are $10 per person per day. One $10 ticket per day will give someone an opportunity to watch as many high school basketball games as they would like and then finish off that day with an evening college basketball game.
"For kids to be able to play in a 6,000-seat arena is something they won't forget. We are blessed to be in Hot Springs, and I am excited that we are able to take advantage of this great privilege."
Bracket play will begin at 9 a.m. on Wednesday. The semifinals of the championship bracket are scheduled for 11:40 a.m. and 1 p.m. The tournament final is scheduled for 5 p.m.
The Tigers are scheduled to play their second game in two nights on Wednesday at 7 p.m. after the high school final. They will host the Pioneers (1-15) of Crowley's Ridge College.
Sports on 01/01/2018