Marion Athletics -

Sammie Lewis sat inside his office less than 24 hours after his team had dispatched of Farmington on Semifinal Saturday, beating the host school 41-35, to cap a 3-0 run at the 2026 Class 5A state basketball tournament.

Marion (29-4 overall) punched its ticket to the fourth state basketball championship game in school history, where the Patriots will play historic Arkansas high school basketball power Little Rock Parkview at 1:45 p.m. on Saturday afternoon at Bank OZK Arena in Hot Springs.

You can watch the Marion-LR Parkview game for free on PBS or on ArkansasTV online by following this link: https://www.arkansastv.gov/live.

The Marion Patriots Activities Network will also provide a free audio-only broadcast of the game, but will not be permitted to show video of the contest.

“The feeling took a little bit, as I looked at Coach (Stanley) Malcolm while we were at dinner and just said 'wow, we are going to Hot Springs,'” said Lewis, who has now reached the state final as a player and assistant coach at Jonesboro, and now the head coach at Marion. “It's a great feeling because this is always a goal for our team, but it's not easy to do. To do it here at Marion, this place has had a lot of success before me, and we hope to continue to have success. I know that we are really excited to have a chance to play for a state championship.”

Marion gets its chance to win the second state title in boys basketball history on Saturday afternoon when the MHS Patriots take on the Little Rock Parkview Patriots (26-5 overall).

It will be the fourth meeting of the schools in the state tournament, with LR Parkview owning a 2-1 edge after victories in 2011 (60-49) and 2024 (52-47), while Marion bested Parkview 58-48 in the 2019 quarterfinals en route to the state championship.

Little Rock Parkview, which has won 13 state titles in school history with 10 runner-up finishes, impressed last week at Farmington, topping Texarkana, which is coached by Marion great Corey Garrett, 71-59, before pulling away from West Memphis 73-46 in the quarterfinals, and besting defending Class 5A state champion Benton 55-43 in the semifinals.

Saturday's schedule of events inside Bank OZK Arena in Hot Springs kicks off with the Mountain Home-Farmington Class 5A girls contest at 12 p.m., followed by Marion-Little Rock Parkview at 1:45.

The Class 6A portion of the night gets underway at 6 p.m. with the North Little Rock-Springdale Har-Ber girls game, and the Little Rock Central-Bryant contest concludes championship weekend with a 7:45 p.m. tip.