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By Carey Reeder | Staff Writer

The varsity boy’s area basketball tournaments are here for Chilton County area teams. Which teams will be moving on to the subregionals, and which teams’ seasons come to an end will be answered in the next seven days.

Chilton County High School enters the AHSAA Class 6A Area 5 tournament as the No. 2 seed and matches up with the No. 3 seeded Calera High School on Feb. 7 at 6 p.m. The tournament is taking place at Benjamin Russell High School who earned the top seed in the tournament. The winner of the Tigers game against Calera will earn a spot in the championship game on Feb. 10 at 6 p.m., and an automatic spot in the subregionals.

Maplesville High School is another team that needs just one win in their respective area tournament to secure a spot in the subregionals. The Red Devils, the No. 3 seed in the AHSAA Class 1A Area 7 tournament, faces the No. 2 seed Notasulga High School in the semifinals on Feb. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at Loachapoka High School.

“I feel pretty good about it, and the guys have made a lot of improvement,” Maplesville coach Undra Rush said. “We need to do some scouting and game planning before (Feb. 6) to fix a few things and tighten it up, but the guys have been playing some great ball the last few games.”

Verbena and Billingsley high schools face off in the preliminary round game to decide the other semifinal representative. The Red Devils and Bears will face off on Feb. 7 at 6:30 p.m. at Billingsley High School.

The championship game of the Class 1A Area 7 tournament is on Feb. 9 at 6:45 p.m. at Loachapoka.

The other tournament with multiple Chilton County teams is the AHSAA Class 2A Area 7 tournament featuring Isabella and Thorsby high schools. The two schools will face off in the preliminary round game on Feb. 4 at 5 p.m. at Thorsby High School. The winner moves on to face the No. 1 seeded Central of Coosa County High School at their home gym.

“I think we are a much better team than we were at the start of the season, it just has not shown,” Thorsby coach Russell Ricks said. “We have not been able to put it all together, it feels like we have been snake bit.”

The Class 2A Area 7 tournament championship game is scheduled for Feb. 9 at 6 p.m at Central of Coosa County High School.

Jemison High School enters the AHSAA Class 5A Area 8 tournament as the No. 4 seed and drew host-school and No. 1 seed Syalcauga High School in the semifinals. The Panthers take on Sylacauga on Feb. 7 at 7:30 pm., and the winner moves on to the championship game on Feb. 9 at 7:30 p.m.

“We have seen them twice pretty recently, and I thought (on Jan. 26) when they came here we played pretty well,” Jemison coach Christian Goodwin said. “Hopefully, we are taking those strides to elevate our play because they are a really good team.”

The two finalists in each area tournament receive automatic spots in the subregional tournaments.