Holiday Classic to tip off tonight

~ The Saint Francis Medical Center Holiday Classic will be played over three days.

While the tournament may have a new name, the outlook heading into the Saint Francis Medical Center Holiday Classic looks the same, as the 10th version of the girls basketball tournament begins today at the Show Me Center.

The newly named tournament -- Saint Francis Medical Center has replaced HealthSouth as sponsor -- will feature one new team, Woodland, among its eight. Jackson, which once again will enter with the top seed, has won the previous two tournament titles, both over Farmington. The Knightettes are seeded second.

The Indians will open the tournament against Woodland at 4 p.m. today. Fourth-seeded Notre Dame will play fifth-seeded Sparta (Ill.) at 5:30 p.m., Farmington will play No. 7 Central at 7 p.m. and No. 3 Massac County (Ill.) will play No. 6 Perryville at 8:30 p.m.

The championship game will be played at 8:30 p.m. on Thursday.

"I think we've played Sparta almost every year they've been in it," Notre Dame coach Jerry Grim said. "They have a pretty good team. I think the team still to beat is Jackson. Jackson's beatable, but I don't know if any of us can do it."

The Bulldogs are the only other team in the field besides Jackson to own a title at the Holiday Classic. The Bulldogs won the title in 2001. Poplar Bluff, which dropped out of the field prior to the 2003 tournament, had won five titles in the first seven years of the tournament.

The Indians entered the tournament last year with an unblemished record. This season, Jackson once again started the season with a Farmington Tournament title and sports a 5-0 record.

Indians coach Sam Sides said he thinks his team will be ready to defend its title.

"I've got some pretty competitive kids -- that's a big part of it," he said. "I just think they want to play and want to win."

It has been the defense which has carried Jackson. The squad lost just one senior from last year's team, but the Indians did lose returning starter Loni Littlepage to injury before the season. Although the offense has struggled at times, Jackson's stingy defense has not missed a beat.

"We try to emphasize it every day," Sides said. "Defense is mostly effort, a little bit of intelligence and effort."

Jackson defeated two teams in the Holiday Classic field at the Farmington Tournament, including a convincing 50-27 win over Farmington in the championship game. The Indians also defeated Perryville 50-38 in their most recent game.

With a regular-season game scheduled against Farmington and another possible meeting in the district playoffs, if Jackson meets the Knightettes in the finals it could be the second of four meetings. Jackson beat Farmington three times last season before falling to the Knightettes in the district semifinals.

"I don't like playing the same people all the time, but unfortunately that's the way it is," Sides said. "Unless one of us goes and finds another tournament, we'll have to deal with it."

Notre Dame, which fell to Sparta in the first round last year, enters with a 3-3 record. The Bulldogs are coming off a 60-59 loss at home on Saturday to St. Louis Notre Dame.

"We've got to play probably our best in order to win the tournament," Grim said. "We're getting to that point. I don't know if we're there yet."

Perryville (2-2), a team which brought back all five starters from a team which nearly defeated Dexter in the Class 4 District 1 championship game last year, could be a sleeper as the sixth seed.

Central is seeded seventh as the Tigers try to rebuild under new coach Sherri Shirrell. The Tigers are off to a 1-4 start after entering the tournament winless last season.

Woodland (3-3) took the place of Dexter.

The two unknowns in the tournament will be the Illinois schools of Sparta and Massac County.

Sides said Massac County, a team which the Indians beat last year at the Holiday Classic then lost to later in the season, will be tough once again.

"I think they're more than capable of winning it," Sides said.