BRAVETTES, EAGLES TO PLAY IN 1A SECTIONALS

The Oran boys and Scott County Central girls will both look to continue their playoff march tonight when Class 1A sectional basketball games are held at Poplar Bluff High School.

Oran will play Thayer at 6:30 p.m. while Scott Central will face Couch at 8:15.

Tonight's winners move on to Saturday's quarterfinal round in Cabool, with those winners moving on to the Class 1A Final Four in Columbia.

Both Oran and Scott Central posted easy regional victories in Sikeston Monday night, the Eagles routing Cooter 60-32 and the Bravettes rolling past Naylor 60-47.

But tonight's games figure to be a bit tougher for both squads.

Oran coach Mitch Wood said the battle between his 22-8 Eagles and 22-6 Thayer should be a good one because he believes the teams match up well.

"From what I've been able to learn about them, they've got three pretty good guards who can all shoot the ball and handle it and they've got a good big kid," said Wood. "It sounds like it should be a real good game. It looks like we'll match up pretty well."

Thayer, which slipped past Viburnum 61-58 to win its regional game Monday night, gets the bulk of its scoring from three players.

John Mills, a 5-foot-8 junior guard, averages 16 points per game, followed by 5-9 senior guard Josh Atkinson (15 ppg) and 6-6 junior center Joey Cushing (14 ppg).

"We've had a good season so far," said Bobcats' coach Cliff Hawkins. "We kind of thought we'd be pretty decent because we had some good players coming back."

Oran is much more balanced than Thayer and never was that more evident than Monday night.

Billy Loper, the Eagles' leading scorer on the season at about 17 points per game, was held scoreless -- yet Oran still won by almost 30 points.

Travis Friga led the way against Cooter with 16 points, Chris Nichols had 15 and Ricky Eftink 10.

"If you had told me that Billy would not score and we'd win by 30, I would have laughed at you," said Wood. "But that's one of the best things about this team, we're so balanced. It seems like different people do it every night."

Added Wood, "I look for a good game (tonight), but we're playing well. And if we continue to play well, we'll have a good shot."

For Scott Central tonight, the mission will be to try and contain Couch's high-scoring duo of Bethany Combs and Krystal Bennett.

Combs, a 5-7 guard, poured in 36 points during Monday's 74-63 win over Valle. Bennett, a 5-11 center, added 24 points. They both average close to 20 points per game on the season.

Scott Central coach Semona Penrod, whose squad is 15-9, believes the Bravettes will have to pick up their level of play.

"We just haven't been real smooth the last few games," she said. "You know the games are going to get a lot tougher now so we've got to improve our play."

Couch has a 17-8 record.