Panther basketball season comes to an end in IESA Regional
By FRED KRONER
The St. Joseph Middle School eighth-grade girls’ basketball team lost to Monticello, 35-19, in the championship game of the IESA Class 3A Regional at Hoopeston on Wednesday (Nov.22).
Brooklyn Stevens led the Panthers with six points. Vivian Smith netted five points. Both Addison Knight and Megan Kearney finished with three points. Avery Haley and Lyla Patton both notched a free throw.
St. Joseph finished with a 12-10 overall record and wins in six of its final eight games of the season.
The group more than doubled the success it had as seventh-graders.
“This team was 5-15 last year and worked hard to get where they are this year,” Panthers coach Tim Landis said.
For the season, Ainsley Dirksmeyer scored 128 points. Kerney had 103, Smith had 56, Stevens had 41, Ava Alexander had 38, Avery Lappin had 36, Patton had 27, Knight had 18 and Haley had 16.
The top individual scoring games were Dirksmeyer (16 points), Alexander (11 points) and Smith (11 points).
Seven squad members led or shared the team-lead in scoring this season.
Dirksmeyer led in eight games and was the co-leader twice.
Kearney led four times and shared the team-lead once. Other Panther leaders were Smith (the leader in two games and co-leader in one), Stevens (the leader in two games and co-leader in one), Alexander (the leader in one game), Lappin (the leader in one game) and Patton (the co-leader in one game).
Heritage Junior High Girls’ Basketball
Reaghan Stierwalt scored five points for the Heritage eighth-grade girls’ basketball team on Saturday (Nov. 18) in a 25-15 loss in an IESA Class 1A regional tournament game.
Kaylee Junglas contributed four points. Finishing with two points were Peyton Curry-Varner, Kalyn Miller and Mariah Spears.
The eighth-graders finish with a 4-11 overall record.
The team’s top scorers for the season were Junglas (90 points), Curry-Varner (68 points), Stierwalt (45 points), Miller (34 points), Violet Chesnut (27 points) and Addison Fleming (12 points).
Curry-Varner (20 points) and Junglas (18 points) had the team’s top individual-game performances. Junglas led the team in scoring in six games while Curry-Varner led in five games. They also shared the team-lead in another game with Spears. Stierwalt led in scoring twice and Fleming once.
“The girls had a tremendous season, even though the record doesn’t show it,” Heritage coach Shawn Miller said. “They played tremendous defense all year and grew in skill level.
“I can see a couple of them being big pieces for the high school team early on as freshmen.”
