There were no upsets on Day 1 of the 2012 LeFlore County Junior High Tournament, which took place Monday at both Poteau High School's Sherman Floyd Fieldhouse and Pansy Kidd Middle School's Upper and Lower Gyms.
At Sherman Floyd Fieldhouse, boys opening-round games saw Pansy Kidd Middle School handle Monroe 64-13, Heavener edge Leflore 30-23 and Talihina nip Pocola 22-20.
As for girls games at Sherman Floyd Fieldhouse, Wister held off Whitesboro 36-35, Howe defeated Leflore 58-10 and Heavener got past Arkoma 42-14.
Now that the Christmas Break is concluded, it's back to business on the hardwood — and I do mean business.
From now until late February and/or early March, it will be basketball pretty much non-stop.
This week is the 2012 LeFlore County Junior High Tournament as well as Spiro's teams playing in the Muskogee Bedouin Shrine Classic, while Thursday through Saturday will be the Rock Island Conference Tournament featuring Leflore and Whitesboro. Also, Talihina's teams will represent the county at Lone Grove's Longhorn Invitational Tournament in Carter County just west of Ardmore.
Here is my first prediction for the 2012 Leflore County Basketball Championship. On the girls' side, I a predicting that the Spiro Lady Bulldogs and the Howe Lady Lions will play for the championship, and I believe that Spiro will pull off the upset, although Howe won Thursday afternoon's close contest in the Panama Holiday Festival. Either one of the Lady Bulldog big girls should walk away with the Most Valuable Player Award.
PANAMA — Each of the three LeFlore County schools whose basketball teams took part in the 2011 Panama Holiday Festival got a victory on Thursday, which was the second, and final, day of the two-day event.
The Howe Lady Lions, the top seed in the 2012 LeFlore County Tournament, defeated the Spiro Lady Bulldogs, the ’12 LCT's No. 2 seed, 40-37, but the Bulldogs handled the Lions 79-64.
The host Panama teams split their games with Acorn, Ark. The Hogs defeated the Tigers 77-70 in overtime, but the Lady Tigers tamed the Lady ’Backs 63-48.
Since I sort of did not make the 2011 LeFlore County Junior High Tournament Guide the way it should have been created a year ago, I pledged to myself that I would make amends for it when the 2012 Guide was created. So, I did.
Carl Albert State College Lady Vikings Basketball Coach Jeff Tadtman would like to announce Danielle Gant as the new Lady Vikings' assistant coach.
In 2005 as a senior at Putnam City West, Gant led the state in scoring with an average of 25.2 points per game. Also, she was named the Oklahoma State Player of the Year.
Following her senior year, she signed and played basketball in the Big 12 for Texas A&M.
PANAMA — The 2011 Holiday Festival hosted by the Panama High School basketball teams kicked off Tuesday with four games of action.
The Spiro and Howe teams swept the Day 1 contests of the festival in both girls and boys action.
In a close in-county battle, the Lions beat the homestanding Hogs by a final score of 48-46, while the Lady Lions handed the Lady ’Backs a defeat of 56-35.
The Spiro squads won over the Acorn Lady Tigers and Tigers with the Lady Bulldogs posting a final score of 49-45, and the ’Dogs running the floor in a game that ended with them winning 69-33.
Alumni football is coming to Poteau. Gridiron Alumni is planning several full contact alumni football games.
Gridiron Alumni travels the nation pitting old football rivals against each other one more time.
Players are needed to sign up, and the first 40 players on each team get to play. The team that gets 30 people registered first gets home-field advantage.
Last year, hundreds of players and thousands of fans swarmed stadiums to watch their home town heroes strap it on one more time.
This year, Gridiron Alumni would like to bring alumni football to the whole state of Oklahoma.
COLLINSVILLE — Four members of the Poteau Youth Wrestling Club competed at Saturday's Cardinal Christmas Classic.
Bryson Terry was runner-up, Ross Johnson and Jarrett Lilley were third and Doncurian Jones was fourth.
Race Williams competed, but did not medal.
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