By CT McDonald
Irmo’s winter sports teams resumed their regular schedules this week after bringing home wins in recent holiday tournaments, and region games are just ahead.
The boys’ varsity basketball team won the Mountaineer Classic tournament at Kings Mountain, North Carolina last Friday when the Yellow Jackets capped off the three-day event with an 80-65 victory against Butler, of Matthews, NC.
Irmo’s 3-0 run in that tournament improved the season count to 12-2 with its only losses coming against James F. Byrnes in the preseason Impact Sports Invitational tournament and Julius Chambers High School in the Border Classic pre-Christmas holiday tournament at Charlotte, NC.
The Yellow Jackets were set to play host to Airport High earlier this week to launch into the new year games, and they will kick off Region 5-AAAA competition Friday at 7:30 pm when they play at Richland Northeast. The Cavaliers were at 7-6 before their non-region game versus Lancaster earlier this week.
As region competition gets underway, Irmo was the conference leader in overall wins and losses when the week began, with Lugoff-Elgin next at 9-6.
Irmo’s varsity girls basketball team completed last week’s Skyhawk Holiday Classic tournament at Hammond High School at 1-3 with a win against Northside Christian Academy and losses against Hammond and Heathwood Hall.
The Lady Yellow Jackets began the regular season with wins against River Bluff and Airport before taking losses versus Chapin, River Bluff and Dutch Fork. Irmo then rebounded with a home win against Chapin before the Christmas holiday break and carried a 4-7 overall count, including tournaments, before their non-region game against Airport earlier this week.
These Yellow Jackets will get their region games started Friday at 6 pm when they take on the Richland Northeast Cavaliers at RNE. The Lady Cavaliers were looking for their first win of the season when they played Lancaster on Wednesday in a non-region matchup.
With the Region 5-AAAA games starting this week, Westwood and A. C. Flora led the girls’ conference teams in overall wins and losses, with Irmo at third followed closely by Ridge View.
All basketball and wrestling teams are back on their regular schedules following the holidays, and will be starting region games in the coming days.
