By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

Yet another prep basketball season is set to tip-off all across the “Southern Six” as well as across the rest of the state Tuesday night.
A veritable plethora of games are scheduled for that first official playing date, after teams saw their first action in jamborees over the weekend on Saturday.

And as usual, one of the first hotbeds of action locally will be in Pass Christian as the Pirates and Lady Pirates host their annual Pass Christian Invitational Tip-off Tournament.
And the first two “Southern Six” squads to see action in the new campaign will be the West Harrison girls and the Pascagoula boys at that event, as both face Forrest County AHS to kick things off.

Pascagoula takes on FCAHS at 5:30 p.m., after the WHHS girls take the floor against the Lady Aggies at 4 p.m., to open the new season.
The Panthers are the only program in the “Southern Six” aiming for a third straight trip to the overall Final Four at The Big house in Jackson. After the PHS boys open the season, the Lady Panthers face the host Lady Pirates at 7 p.m., in the season-opener for both teams.

And while both the Panthers and Lady Panthers will be venturing out of Jackson County to open the season, there will still be plenty of action in Jackson County which will host a pair of interesting intra-county match-ups.

Those two opening night affairs include a pair of all “Southern Six” encounters as Moss Point travels to St. Martin and Gautier heads to Ocean Springs in both boys and girls action.

The games in St. Martin will serve as the annual “Joe Barlow Tip-Off” event this season for the Yellow Jackets which won’t host a one-day multi-team event this season. St. Martin boys head coach indicated that he intends to bring back the one day tourney next year to honor Barlow, which started 10 years ago.

“This year we are excited to start out the 25-26 season honoring one of the greatest Yellow Jackets of all time, Mr. Joe Barlow.” veteran Yellow Jackets head coach Charlie Pavlus said. “This will be the 11th straight year we’ve honored Mr. Barlow’s name in one of our events. He has had an in-measurable impact on my life and so many others over the years. I’m so thankful we get to continue to honor him year after year.”

The girls’ match-up to start the evening between the Lady jackets and Lady Tigers will feature a pair of squads that each made dxeep playoff runs last year and will be looking to do the same again this season.
Also, George County hosts Stone on Tuesday, while Bay High heads to Hancock and St. Patrick hosts D’Iberville.