LUMBERTON — Robeson County basketball fans now know the pairings for next week’s Robeson County Shootout after tournament brackets were released by Jerome Hunt, the Public Schools of Robeson County’s athletic director, on Monday.
The tournament will be played from Wednesday, Dec. 15 through Saturday, Dec. 18, with first-round matchups taking place on Wednesday, consolation-round games on Thursday, semifinals on Friday and the championship round on Saturday.
First-round matchups are the same for both the boys and girls tournaments, with the girls game at 6 p.m. and the boys at 7:30 p.m. at each site. Red Springs will play at St. Pauls, Heide Trask at Lumberton, Whiteville at Purnell Swett and Lake View at Fairmont.
In Thursday’s consolation round, the losers of Wednesday’s Red Springs-St. Pauls and Heide Trask-Lumberton games will play at Red Springs and the losers of Wednesday’s Whiteville-Purnell Swett and Lake View-Fairmont games will play at Fairmont. The girls game at each site will be at 6 p.m. and the boys game at 7:30 p.m.
The semifinal round will be played Friday, also with girls games at 6 p.m. and boys at 7:30 p.m. The winners of Wednesday’s Red Springs-St. Pauls and Heide Trask-Lumberton games will play at Lumberton and the winners of Wednesday’s Whiteville-Purnell Swett and Lake View-Fairmont games will play at Purnell Swett.
Saturday’s games will be played at the English E. Jones Center on The University of North Carolina at Pembroke’s campus, with a championship game, third-place game and fifth-place game in both the boys and girls tournaments.
Semifinal winners will meet in the girls championship at 6 p.m. and the boys championship at 8 p.m.; semifinal losers will play for third place, at 2 p.m. for the girls and 4 p.m. for the boys; and consolation-round winners will play in the fifth-place game, at 10 a.m. for the girls and noon for the boys.
Whiteville returns to the Shootout field after multiple previous appearances; Heide Trask makes its first appearance. Dillon, a tournament mainstay in recent years, is not in the 2021 field.
The Shootout returns in 2021 for the 35th edition of the boys tournament and the 28th playing of the girls tournament after it was not played in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Lumberton boys and the St. Pauls girls are the reigning Shootout champions after winning in 2019.
