History was made Saturday as crosstown schools the Blytheville Chickasaws and Gosnell Pirates faced off for the first time on a basketball court since the mid-1900’s. The Chickasaws came away with an 86-55 victory over the Pirates in the Northeast Arkansas Invitational quarterfinals at First National Bank Arena on the campus of Arkansas State University. The Pirates held a back-and-forth lead for the first six and half minutes of the contest but after Chickasaw senior guard Treay Jamison answered a Pirate three-pointer from senior guard Brandon Partee with a minute left with a three-pointer of his own, the Chickasaws led by three at the end of the first. Pirates junior guard CaDarius Young connected on four straight free throws midway through the second quarter to pull to within one point of the Chickasaws and then with 4:25 left a Pirate sophomore Jordan Lewis hook shot cut the Chicks’ lead back to one point. The Chickasaws ended the half on a 16-8 run, which was helped out by Jaquon Fowler’s eight points. BHS led 42-33 at the half. The Chickasaws outscored the Pirates by nine points in the third quarter to increase their lead to 63-45 heading into the final quarter of play. BHS continued their high scoring play until a running clock and head coach McKenzie Pierce put in the reserves at the 2:40 mark. Chickasaw senior Cameron Carmichael finished the night by connecting on both free throws as time expired to give the Chicks an 86-55 victory over the Pirates in the first matchup in nearly a half of a century. “No one really said anything about it being a more important game or anything. I think the kids knew all the kids and those kids know all of our kids. I think they were just excited to play in front of a big crowd at a great stadium, it was just a good experience for our kids,” said GHS head coach Kirk Glintborg. “I felt like we played well for a quarter and a half… nearly two full quarters, and then second half we just didn’t play very well.” Pierce explained, “Of course it’s always good to get a win in a tournament especially in that big arena, it is always tough. It’s my fourth year playing in it and the first game is always a little bit sloppy. I didn’t think we played very good tonight, especially defensively… I thought we shot the ball pretty well [Saturday]… It was a good win.” BHS had five players in double digits with Jamison leading all scorers with 23 points. Tony Newmy Jr. finished with 17 points, Michael Caruthers chipped in 16 points, Fowler added 11 points and Winston Peace chipped in 10 points. “Five guys in double digits, you’re always doing some good things if you got five guys in double digits,” said Pierce. “ We kind of put more of an emphasis in practice… we’ve always put up a lot of shots… so in the last week we’ve put a lot of pressure such as time shooting and team shooting in practice… When you get open looks after ball movement it’s a lot easier to make shots and I just thought we got a lot of open looks tonight and we knocked them down.” Trajan Donnerson led GHS with 13 points. M’kylan Caruthers added 11 points. Glintborg added, “Offensively, early on I thought we did some good things. I think we got to a point to where we started forcing shots, instead of letting it come to us. We started shooting the ball early, and they were getting some run outs on us and that affected the run they made… Defensively, I don’t think we did a very good job and gave up layups… I see potential in our team. I like our team, I just think we have to putting it all together. But yes I’m seeing positive things out of a lot people.” The Chicks will face the Brookland Bearcats on Tuesday at 8:30 p,m. “[Brookland is ] a good team, they got a big win over Nettleton [Raiders] early. They’ve been playing really well,” said Pierce. “Really well coached, Bobby Gross does a tremendous job and he’s got an assistant in Bill Taylor, who is a legend at BIC. So they’ll have a good game plan ready. They’re really going to try and slow it down and run their stuff…” On getting a crosstown matchup going regularly both coaches talked about looking into it. Pierce mentioned, “I’d love [more matchups]. I believe Coach [Glintborg], that he’d like it. I think it is probably a little bit out of his hands. I think it’d be up to the [Gosnell] administration. They seem to be the ones that have kept it at bay for all these years, for whatever reason, but obviously I’d love it. I’d love if we could have an early Mississippi County tournament, whatever and have all the teams in here and play a couple of games. There are just too many good basketball teams that not only have good players but good coaches in Mississippi County. And there is no reason why we shouldn’t be playing especially us, Osceola, Rivercrest and Gosnell are all similar enough in size. Armorel is a little different because they’re a 1A school and the KIPP school. I understand them not wanting to because there is a large difference in school size… At the end of the day you can only put five guys on the court… I don’t know. I was in 2A for two years and the top four teams could play anybody in the 5A. I’d love it; I think it is probably up to their administration I don’t know why we wouldn’t. When you can get good intense non-conference games regardless of the skill level or how good the teams are, but when you can simulate the intensity of a postseason in a non conference game, I mean that’s what you want and you’re going to get it when you play Gosnell and Osceola… I hope it happens, I understand that he hopes it will happen, but you know the coach before him [Jimmy] Porter tried to get a game and the administration shut it down and they have been the ones to continuously shut it down. So, we’d love to have it, for the kids’ sake. I think the people involved in it need to put their agendas to the side and for the kids’ sake need to let them play.” Glintborg added,“Sure I think it’d be great. I think it’s something that the kids will be really excited about and something we need to sit down and look at.”