Middle School Bears Open Season With Zizzers, Panthers

The Ava Middle School Bears opened the 2013-2014 season at West Plains on Tuesday, Nov. 19 .

The Bears won the seventh grade contest 41-32.

Ava led 10-4 after one quarter of play and led 19-15 at halftime. The margin remained four points at 27-23 after three quarters of play.

Caleb Johnson led the scoring for the Bears with 11 points, followed by Griffin Taylor with 10 points. Stephen Copeland and Drake King scored 7 points each, and Dustin Kilgore scored 6 points to complete the scoring for Ava.

The Bears lost the eighth  grade game 39-5. Ava’s scoring consisted of four points by Takoma Dobbs and one point from Joey Swofford.

The Bears traveled to Mountain Grove on Thursday, Nov. 21 . The seventh grade Panthers defeated the Bears 39-24. Mountain Grove led 9-5 after one quarter of play and led 22-12 at halftime.

Leading scorers for the Bears were Caleb Johnson with 7 points and Griffin Taylor with 5 points. The remainder of the scoring for Ava included:   Stephen Copeland 4, Drake King 4, Dustin Kilgore 2, and Dwight Emerson 2.

The Bears were defeated 33-28 by the Panthers in the eighth grade contest. Ava led 6-2 after one quarter of play, but the Panthers rallied to take a 15-13 halftime lead.

Ava closed the margin to only trail by one point at the end of three quarters of play. The Bears held a one point lead with just under four minutes to go in the game, but were unable to hold off the Panthers in the final minutes.

Takoma Dobbs led the scoring for the Bears with 10 points, followed by Weston Stillings with 9 points. Wyatt Gastineau scored 7 points and Connor Moran chipped in 2 points to round out the scoring for Ava.