The schedule for the 52nd annual Lanierland girls and boys high school basketball tournament, involving nearly all of the Hall County schools, has been released.

This year, the tournament will be held the week before Christmas with eight teams in both the boys and girls brackets, along with a consolation bracket to decide third and fourth place.

Both the East Hall girls and boys teams will be back to defend their 2010 titles. The Vikings open at 8 p.m. Dec. 19 against No. 8 Chestatee, a game which will feature two of the area’s most prolific scorers from last season in East Hall senior Joshua Hampton and Chestatee junior Keelan Passmore. The top-seeded Lady Vikings will play Johnson at 6:30 p.m. All first round games will be played on Dec. 19 at East Hall.

The No. 3 Lady Trojans will open with No. 6 West Hall at noon, and the No. 2 Trojans start with No. 7 Lakeview at 5 p.m. The North Hall teams swept the tournament in 2009.

Play will begin on the opening day of the tournament at 9 a.m. with the No. 4 Gainesville girls playing No. 5 Flowery Branch. The No. 4 Flowery Branch boys will play No. 5 West Hall at 10:30 a.m., followed by the Lady Spartans-Lady Trojans contest and then the No. 3 Gainesville boys against No. 6 Johnson at 1:30 p.m.

At 3:30 p.m. the No. 2 Chestatee girls will play the lone team outside of Hall, the No. 7 Jefferson Lady Dragons.
Consolation games for both brackets will be held on Dec. 20-21. The first day will be at East Hall and the games on Dec. 21 will be at Johnson.

The semifinals will feature the winners of the 1-8 and 4-5 matchups (at 7:30 p.m.) and the 2-7 and 3-6 games (at 6 p.m.) The girls semifinals will be held Dec. 20 at East Hall and the boys on Dec. 21 at Johnson.

The girls championship will be held at 6 p.m. on Dec. 22, with the boys final following at 7:30 p.m., both at Johnson.