Vicksburg vs. Warren Central basketball games won’t be played this week

Published 12:36 pm Tuesday, January 16, 2024

The second round of the Vicksburg vs. Warren Central basketball rivalry will not be played this week.

The girls-boys basketball doubleheader between the schools, scheduled for Tuesday night at Warren Central, was postponed because of a winter storm that paralyzed much of Mississippi. Vicksburg Warren School District athletics director James Lewis said conflicts with other games made it difficult to find a new date to play on, and it will instead be pushed back to later in the season.

Both schools have games already scheduled for Friday night, and Vicksburg’s boys team will play Terry in the Rumble in the South event at Mississippi College Saturday at 8:30 p.m. The Little Six junior high basketball tournament is also scheduled for this week in Ridgeland.

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On Friday, Vicksburg plays at Callaway and Warren Central is at home vs. Neshoba Central.

“We’ll have to push it back to later in January, or even in February,” Lewis said. “We’re trying to keep them from playing back-to-back days — that’s not fair with these district games — and this week there is just a lot going on.”

Fans who purchased tickets for the Vicksburg-Warren Central game through GoFan.co will have their money refunded, Lewis said, and will need to buy them again once the game is rescheduled.

“We sold quite a few tickets,” Lewis said. “Because it’ll be so far out, instead of later this week, we’ll have to cancel it out of the system and they’ll have their money refunded.”

While the date of the basketball game is in limbo, Warren Central’s soccer teams rescheduled their contests with Ridgeland for Wednesday. The girls teams will play at 5 p.m. at Viking Stadium, and the boys at 6:45, provided school is open Wednesday.

The winter storm left most of Central Mississippi’s roads under a sheet of ice, and temperatures are not forecast to get above freezing until Wednesday afternoon.

St. Aloysius and Porter’s Chapel Academy also reconfigured their schedules because of the storm.

St. Al canceled a boys’ soccer game against Adams County Christian School and a basketball doubleheader against Greenville Christian, both scheduled for Monday. No make-up dates were announced. St. Al athletics director Bubba Nettles said the basketball game is unlikely to be made up.

The home basketball games vs. Cathedral that were postponed on Jan. 12 have been rescheduled for Jan. 25, and a scheduled road game at East Rankin Academy on Jan. 25 has been canceled.

Vicksburg Catholic School canceled classes for Tuesday because of the storm, which also meant the evening’s home junior high and varsity basketball games vs. Copiah Academy were postponed. They have been rescheduled for Thursday beginning at 4 p.m.

Porter’s Chapel canceled a soccer game against Cathedral that was scheduled for Monday, and reworked its basketball schedule to deal with two postponements.

PCA’s home basketball games vs. River Oaks, scheduled for Tuesday, were postponed until Jan. 25.

Meanwhile, two basketball dates with Prairie View Academy were affected by weather. The home games originally scheduled for Jan. 12 were moved to Jan. 20, and will be at Prairie View instead of PCA. The junior high games will begin at 4 p.m. and varsity at 6.

PCA and Prairie View are also scheduled to play on Jan. 26. That game will now be played at PCA instead of in Bastrop, Louisiana.

PCA athletics director Blake Purvis said Thursday’s basketball games at Sharkey-Issaquena Academy in Rolling Fork are still on.

“I think we’ll be OK by then,” Purvis said.

About Ernest Bowker

Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since 1998, making him one of the longest-tenured reporters in the paper's 140-year history. The New Jersey native is a graduate of LSU. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg.

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