Basketball fever heats up this time of year, and Talawanda supporters are trying to stoke the fires for the last home games of the season for the Braves’ teams.

Talawanda’s boys and girls basketball teams will both close out their home schedules Saturday with senior recognitions prior to their contests. The girls varsity team will play Little Miami High School at 1 p.m. in their final regular-season game and it will also be their final Southwest Ohio Conference game.

The boys team will play in the evening hosting Kings as they close out their home schedule at 7:30 p.m. The boys have their final regular-season game scheduled for next Friday, Feb. 15, at Ross.

RE/MAX Alpha Real Estate agent Jason Reynolds and Oxford LaRosa’s are teaming up to encourage fans to show up and support both teams with a special ticket promotion, giving fans $1 off tickets for both games.

“I want to promote the games and get a big crowd there,” Reynolds said. “I’m trying to get more people to the games. I developed a flyer to give everyone a dollar off admission to the games.”

Sectional tournament play opens next week for the girls with the boys starting their tournament the following week.

The Talawanda girls will open Division 2 sectional tournament play with a Valentine’s day tipoff against Batavia High School at 7:30 p.m. at Withrow High School in Cincinnati.

The winner of that game will play Thursday, Feb. 21, in a 6 p.m. game, also at Withrow, against Aiken.

The draw for the boys tournament will be this Sunday.

Talawanda girls coach Kim Richter went to their draw Sunday afternoon undefeated and was given the number 1 seed. While Richter could have taken a bye, she opted to play the first week, rather than wait a week to take the floor.

“I wanted to play the first week instead of taking the bye,” she said. “It will help the girls get comfortable with the gym and the rims. I would rather have the competition than the week off.”

Teams seeded two through five opted to go to the upper bracket so that the next highest seeded team in Talawanda’s bracket is New Richmond, the sixth seed. If Talawanda and New Richmond both win their first two games, they would meet Saturday, Feb. 23, at 4:30 p.m. at Withrow.

“New Richmond is a good team,” Richter said. “They beat Norwood, the third seed. There are challenges before us, even in the sectionals. The bottom line is we have to play one game at a time and take every game serious as good teams with good players.”

Senior Day recognitions will take place prior to both games on Saturday, so fans should arrive early to celebrate the accomplishments of those leaders over the past four years.

The girl’ team will say good-bye to Carlee Hendricks, Erika Wilhelm, Brilyn Webb and Bristyl Webb as well as foreign exchange student Lone Hallum, who has been with the team this season.

“We want to honor what they brought to the program,” Richter said. “They brought the program to a different level.”

The girls brought an undefeated 19-0 record into this week, 12-0 in SWOC play. They were scheduled to travel to Wilmington last Saturday, but the trip was postponed to Wednesday due to snow that day. Richter said the extra time off was good for her team because it gave additional time to allow several players who were sick or injured to recover.

The boys team will celebrate the contributions of seven seniors: Tripp Webb, Nolan Robinson, Bobbie Bennett, Joe Kuhn, Howie Smith, Austin Davidson and Colton Adams.

Reynolds said 2,500 copies of his discount flyer have been printed and many of them are being distributed through the Friday Folder district elementary students will take home today. Fans can show the flyers for $1 off admission to both games Saturday for all family members who want to attend.

Additional copies of the flyer are also available at the schools and at the RE/MAX Alpha office at the corner of Fairfield Road and McGuffey Avenue.