Middle School Lady Bears Update
The Middle School Lady Bears are rounding out their seasons. The Lady Bears have had a few full weeks of back to back games. On December 12th, they hosted the Reeds Spring Wolves for their final home game. The 8th graders played first and the 7th graders were only able to play one quarter because of the shortage of players from the opposing team. The 8th graders came out strong leading the first and second quarters of the game. The Lady Wolves however came back to tie the ball game at the end of the third quarter. The Lady Bears were at the free throw line several times throughout the game but couldn’t get their shots to fall. The game came down to the last few seconds with Reeds taking the win by just two points, 32-30. The 7th graders got a chance to play the same team after, but only one quarter leaving the girls to play just a few minutes a piece. They did however score 6 points by the end of that quarter and held the Lady Wolves to 4.
On December 13th, the Lady Bears traveled to Licking. Both teams came up short against Licking, 45-7 and 38-20. The 7th graders were not able to get many shot attempts up only scoring 7 points, but the 8th graders kept their game closer. Paris Henry was the leading scorer for the 7th grade while Chloe Barnum was the leader for the 8th grade with 16 points.
Rounding out the last week of middle school basketball the Lady Bears had a tournament in Liberty. The games got pushed back a day with inclement weather, so they ended up playing back to back to back days with a makeup game on Thursday.
First up for the Lady Bears on December 17th were the Liberty Eagles. Both teams played the Eagles in the first round, and were trying to grab that first win. However both teams came up short to two very good Liberty teams who ended up winning the tournament. The 7th grade game ended up 43-14 and the 8th grade game 37-25. The 8th graders kept the game pretty close for the first half then the Lady Eagles pulled away with the win. The next evening, December 18th the Lady Bears traveled back to Mtn. View for the final of the tournament. Both Ava teams played the Thayer Bobcats. The 7th grade could not get a shot to fall until the second half against a tough Thayer defense, ending 35-16 and taking the 4th place spot in the tournament. The 8th graders however pulled away with a 3rd place finish for the Liberty tournament with a 22-16 win over the Thayer Bobcats. They started off strong and kept the lead the whole game, but it was a very close game. Thayer had a ton of break away layups that the Lady Bears couldn’t stop, but thankfully most of those didn’t fall. The Lady Bears scored a few more times in the 4th quarter to seal the win and kept Thayer from coming back, to take that third place win.
On December 19th the Lady Bears traveled to their last game at Mtn. Grove; this was a makeup game. Both teams came away with a loss; 7th grade 29-13 and 8th grade 46-30. The 7th grade had a low scoring game, but took plenty of good shots with no luck. They were very aggressive and hustled on defense, but just could not stop the Lady Panthers. The 8th graders had a little better luck with their shooting, but still had a lot of good shots that just would not fall. Both teams hustled and played good defense. The Lady Panthers were good outside shooters which really hurt us. Overall it was a tough game.
From the beginning of the season to the last the Lady Bears have made a tremendous amount of progress. They learned a lot and will be successful in whatever they do. We hope to see the girls put on a jersey again next year, whether it be for the high school team or middle school.
