BATON ROUGE — The lights will come up at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center on Wednesday and go down for the final time Friday night at Tiger Stadium as LSU plays host to the final Louisiana High School Coaches Association/Coca-Cola All-Star Games beginning with the East-West Volleyball match.
The volleyball match is set for 7 p.m. on Wednesday with the boys and girls basketball games on Thursday beginning at 6 p.m. The 69th and final football game in the current East-West format is set for 6:30 p.m. on the newly surfaced Tiger Stadium field on the LSU campus.
While the football game will be folded into the Bayou Bowl matching Louisiana and Texas athletes, the coaches associations for the various sports will take over the volleyball and basketball all-star games and will play them immediately after the respective seasons end at locations still to be determined.
Wednesday night’s volleyball match will be the 24th in the series since the match was incorporated into the all-star week with the East the dominant team holding a 20-3 advantage. The East has won the last five matches.
The basketball series are both much closer with the West up 18-14 in the 32 previous girls basketball meetings. Thursday’s nightcap will mark the 55th time the boys have played with the East holding 28 victories. The majority of the 68 football games have been played in Baton Rouge with the East stopping a two-year West winning streak last year to hold a 39-27-2 advantage going to this final matchup.
The football series began in 1938.
Last year’s all-star games were hosted by LSU but played on the campus of Southern University while the Assembly Center and Tiger Stadium were both under construction. Tickets will be on sale each night at the box office for $7 and for Friday’s football game, all seating will be on the East Side and fans are asked to buy tickets and enter in the Gate 11 area.