OV 5th/6th grade basketball wrapping up successful first half of season

Kirby Brown
·3 min read

Last week Owen Valley’s fifth-grade girls flexed their defensive muscle with a 30-0 shutout win against Shakamak on Monday night. They then had a quick turnaround and handed the Indian Creek Braves a loss on Tuesday Night 27-17. The sixth-grade girls came up just short of the victory against Shakamak losing a heartbreaker 16-14 and then dug an early hole against Indian Creek that they weren’t quite able to crawl out of falling 23-17.

The 6th grade girls lost one of their experienced returning players in Natasha Neibel for at least a portion of the season with a broken arm prior to the team’s first game. First-year coach, John Newby says “Although our record isn’t what we wanted at this point, the 6th grade girls are playing hard on both ends of the court. Rya White and Dakota Folden are really stepping up in the last two games and the chemistry is starting to come together. Improving every day is our main goal and that is happening, so I am very excited to see what these girls can accomplish the rest of the season.”

“The 5th grade girls have gelled quickly and the success on the court is only motivating them more. Their work ethic and focus has been really good, they are fun team to coach,” Newby says.

Owen Valley 6th Grade Girls (0-7) Season Scoring Stats

  • Emmy Sword 25

  • Lillian Miller 17

  • Gracie Gragg 14

  • Myra Osborne 12

  • Addyson Haltom 11

  • Harleigh White 10

  • Rya White 10

  • Dakota Folden 9

  • Lynlee Sanders 2

  • Natasha Neibel Injured

Coaches- John Newby and Brianne Burke

Owen Valley 5th Grade Girls (8-1) Season Scoring Stats

  • Kendall Freeman 96

  • Katrina Rueter 48

  • Tinsley Monroe 41

  • Harper Jones 27

  • Chloe Woodruff 14

  • Aubrey Mangia 6

  • Alyssa Livingston 2

The girls will wrap up the first half of the season with this week with a game on Thursday, Dec. 16 at home versus Seven Oaks. (Home games played at Spencer Elementary).

* * * *

The 5th and 6th grade boys hit the floor twice last week as well. The 5th grade boys pulled out a 29-24 win over the North Putnam Cougars on Monday night and wrapped the week up with a 36-6 victory over the Bloomfield Cardinals. The 6th grade boys sent the Cougars home a 31-22 loser and then handled the Bloomfield 6th grade squad, 36-14. The 6th grade boys were invited to participate in a pre-season tournament in early November and the learnings from that experience have translated well for the regular season while the 5th grade boys have truly shown themselves to have solid potential moving forward if they can continue to play the team-oriented basketball that we have seen to this point.

While both teams have seen solid success on the floor, assistant coach Randall Van Arsdale noted “We are simply focused on getting better every day, and we have a lot of work to do in order to achieve the goals we have for these two teams.”

Owen Valley 6th Grade Boys (4-2) Season Scoring Stats

  • Nolan Van Arsdale 48

  • Grady Bough 33

  • Parker Greene 26

  • Camden Kay 23

  • Jacob Henderson 19

  • Joey Richardson 17

  • Maxim Hamm 12

  • Jaxon Dill 4

  • Liam Hogan 4

  • Kohle Robertson 4

Coaches - Kirby Brown, Matt Michael, Travis Bough & Randall Van Arsdale

Owen Valley 5th Grade Boys (7-1) Season Scoring Stats

  • Walker LaGrange 115

  • Jet Hutton 65

  • Nolan Martin 41

  • Braxton “Caddy” Michael 26

  • Braxton Miller 19

  • Hank Moore 12

  • Kolston Brown 9

  • Carson Bryant 8

  • Londyn Frye 8

The boy’s next home game will be January 6 versus Seven Oaks at Spencer Elementary.

This article originally appeared on Evening World: OV 5th/6th grade basketball wrapping up successful first half of season