Tonight is the start of an important four-game battle to get the No. 1 area tournament seed spot for the Pleasant Home Eagles.

The 66-49 win over Kinston put the Eagles in a tie with Kinston and at this point, Pleasant Home will need to break the tie in order to host their area tournament.

“We’ve got to play out some ball games,” Pleasant Home coach Jerry Davis said. “The way the tiebreaker works is that we have to compare our opponents’ win-loss records that we’ve played in our league.

“Then we have to go above our league and what’s unusual about it, is that all four opponents that we have that are comparable, we happen to play the next four ball games,” he said. “(The team) have all already played everybody but Straughn, which is the extra ball game.”

As far as the game tonight, Davis said his team is “looking forward to the rival game.”

“We like to play Straughn,” he said. “I hope we’re up to the task. I’m sure they’ve got some revenge on their minds because we beat them the first time around.

“We’re looking forward to a good ball game and it’s getting down to the end and I’m sure coach (Todd) Reynolds as well as myself — we’re both hoping they start to play well here at the end.”

Pleasant Home will go on to play Zion Chapel, Samson and Ariton later this week and Davis said these games are crucial because of the tie-breaker.

“Basically, if we can win one of our next four ball games, we win the tie-breaker,” Davis said. “That’s what it basically comes down to. (Kinston) played all of their games except they’ve got to play Straughn and it may not even come down to that. We’ve got the upper hand in that if we can win ball games.

“Now, from that standpoint, we feel decent because we’ve beaten all four teams (Straughn, Zion Chapel, Samson and Ariton) at least one time already,” he said.

Straughn will play Kinston next Mon., Feb. 2.

Davis said he will be relying on his three seniors, Stephen Davis, Emory Rabren and Josh Sutton, to all have good games this week.

“This is where your seniors have got to step up,” he said. “Stephen Davis and Emory Rabren both played great the other night against Kinston. They both had very good games and they’ve got to continue on.

“Josh Sutton is very valuable to us,” he said. “He can play anywhere on the floor. At some point in time this year, he’s played every position and started a bunch of ball games. Those three have survived it since day one.”

Coach Davis added the time is now for his team to “turn it on.”

“It’s the time of year that we’ve got to turn it on, let’s put it that way,” Davis said. “We hadn’t peaked yet and we played two pretty good basketball games back to back, so we hope we’re starting to head in that direction.”

At practice this week, Davis said preventing turnovers and guarding the boards are the two keys they will be working on improving.

“Our main focus is not to turn that basketball over and try to keep the other team off the boards,” he said. “We’ve got to be able to block out and cut down our turnover ratio at the moment. We can’t give up easy ones and let them have easy ones.”

Tip off is at 4:30 p.m. with the B-team.