By By ZACH BROOKS
Sports Writer
The Escambia County High School Blue Devils will face a difficult challenge this week when the play in the United Bank Invitational Tournament.
The tournament will include Pace, Escambia County, Crestview, T.R. Miller, Robertsdale, W.S. NEAL, and J.U. Blacksher.
The tournament will be a springboard for the Devils into the second half of the season.
The Devils almost won the tournament last year, but were thwarted by Pace in last year's championship game.
The Devils start off the tournament by playing J.U. Blacksher at 8:30 in the last game of the night.
The rest of the games for Thursday will look like this: W.S. Neal and Pace will begin the tournament at 4:00, Northview and Robertsdale will follow at 5:30, Crestview and T.R. Miller will play at 7:00, and J.U. Blacksher and Escambia County will play in the final game at 8:00.
The last team in each bracket will be the home team in that game. The home team will wear their light jerseys and the away team will wear their dark jerseys.
The home team will sit on the north bench and the visiting team will sit on the south bench.
Official scorers will be furnished for all games and the time between games will be 10 minutes per game. Half time will be ten minutes long also.
The dressing rooms for each team will be numbered on the door, and there will be a hospitality room for all coaches and school officials.
There will be four team trophies in the tournament: First place will be the winner of the last game. Second place will be the loser of the last game. The two third place trophies will be awarded to the winners of the semi-final games.
Two members of each team will receive a plaque for the all-tournament team. Each coach will select his teams two players. An MVP trophy will be awarded to a player on the first place team.
The tournament will be sponsored by United Bank and will take place on Jan. 3-5.