Feb 7, 2008

The Ava Bears found the going rather rough on the home hardwood during the past week, dropping SCA contests to Willow Springs and Thayer. On Friday night, the Bears created an exciting finish, but lost to Willow Springs by a narrow, two-point margin, 54-52. Again Tuesday night, the Bears came on strong in the fourth quarter but could not hold off the Thayer Bobcats, and lost a very physical battle, 48-44. Taylor Wallace led the Bears on Friday night with 15 points and Tyler Williams added 12. But Willow’s Jacob Capeder sank 24 points for the visitors which led 30-24 at intermission. Others scoring for Ava were Jonathan Batcheller 8, Josh Wendler 6, Nick Short 5, Brandon Stanifer 4, and Trevor Watterson 2. Ava junior varsity fell to Willow Springs 59-46. On Tuesday night, Ava players tallied nine baskets from behind the 3-point arc but still came out on the short end of the score, 48-44. Thayer hit nine of 19 free throws with all nine being made in the fourth period when the Bobcats were 9-of-16 from the line. Wallace led Ava in scoring with 10 points, including three baskets from 3-point range. Batcheller also had 10 markers for the home Bears. Williams scored all of his nine points from 3-point range and Watterson hit two from 3-point land and finished the game with eight points. Rounding out the Ava scoring were Wendler 4 and Short 3. Ava JV made a big comeback in the fourth quarter to down Thayer 56-49. Six-foot-5 sophomore Logan Dickens led the Bears with 13 points and brought the big “Senior Night” crowd to its feet with a powerful dunk to end the game. Pete Leonard, Brock Mitchell and Matt Ritter each had 12 points for Ava JV. The Bears will travel to Houston Friday night, and in a rescheduled match for the varsity girls, there will be two varsity games and no JV action on Friday night. The boys will then travel to Salem on Feb. 12 and to Cabool on Feb. 15 to close out the regular season before district action begins.