BELMONT — It may be spring, but there’ll be action on the hardwood this Friday for a good cause.

The Union Local men’s basketball team will be playing an exhibition match against the Belmont County Special Olympics team on Friday, May 3 at 1 p.m. inside the ULHS gymnasium. The Jets and Eagles hope to raise awareness and raise money for their Special Olympics program.

The event found its footing when Union Local head coach Zach Delman started learning more about the Eagles.

“I teach high school special education,” Delman said. “And in talking to a couple of the special ed teachers that we have here, we have a couple students who play for the Special Olympics team. We just kind of kicked the idea around a few months ago– when basketball season ends, would we want to get together and do something? We decided we’d do something closer to the spring.”

The Eagles play Special Olympics games with similar teams from other counties, including a Jefferson County team, a Tuscarawas Valley team, and traveling all the way to face teams in out-of-state cities like Cleveland, Columbus and Dayton.

On Friday though, they’ll face the Union Local Jets in an exhibition which both sides hopes will lead to more recognition for the Special Olympics program going forward.

“Just getting an opportunity to showcase some of the students who do special olympics at UL, and to use our team as a platform to help elevate them and get them some exposure,” Delman said. “We’ll have fun with it, we’ll raise money, and we’ll donate all the money to the Special Olympics team.”

“The more awareness we get for this program the better,” Eagles head coach Lance Richards said. “I’ve been coaching for a long time, and the program’s been around for 50-something years, and people still will say ‘I didn’t even know we had special olympics around here.’ It’s important for people to know that we have these options for these guys.”

Richards said he’d been coaching Belmont County Special Olympics basketball for over 10 years.

For the Jets’ part, they sound all-in on the event.

“They were down for it, asking questions– ‘what can we do, when is this happening,'” Delman said. “And this and that. They’re excited to have some fun with it, help them out and make it a good experience.”

The exhibition could attract quite a crowd with students being able to attend, and one dollar donations being accepted at the door in what both Delman and Richards described as a pep-rally type of atmosphere.

“I’ll tell you, for awareness and inclusion, I can’t think of anything better,” Richards said. “It’s going to be at a little pep rally kind of thing. I don’t think I could explain to you how much it’s going to mean to our guys, I think it’ll really mean a lot to the Union Local basketball players too. They’re going to fall in love with some Eagles.”