English Valleys Wins Play-Game Over Meskwaki Settlement

NORTH ENGLISH—The English Valleys Bears hosted the Meskwaki Settlement Warriors. The Bears bested the Warriors by a final score of 65-31. 

The Warriors opened up the scoring in the first, but the Bears responded with a 13-0 run of their own. By the end of the first, English Valleys had secured the 17-6 lead. The Bears went on to out-score the Warriors in every quarter en route to the 65-31 victory. 

The Bears had four athletes hit double digits on the night. Senior guard Myles Grove led the scoring with 17 points, while freshman guard Everett Bender tallied 15 of his own. Freshman center Kane Axmear finished with 13 points, 10 of which came in the first half. Senior A.J. Bruns scored 10 of his own as well.

After the game, senior Myles Grove spoke on the Bears mentality coming into the game as, “I told the guys pregame, and I knew it was cheesy, that this is the last time you’ll play with me on this court. As funny as it was in the moment, it just hits sometimes that you have to go out for one last time. A win is what we wanted, and came out and went for it.”

Grove comes into the game averaging a team high 11.2 points per game. Each basket comes with extreme precision and skill in his ability to find his spot to score. Grove described his ability to develop these skills with, “I have been doing it for four years at the high school level, but it goes beyond just playing in the season. You have to go to Sunday or summer open gyms and be coachable. You can’t teach what some guys have. Just listening, watching and absorbing some things. Just stepping up as a leader because we have to have a guy like that. It has evolved into what it has become because of all that.”

Senior A.J. Bruns knew this was a game where he could make his presence known in the paint with his size advantage. “I wasn't expecting how physical they were, and I knew I had a size advantage coming into. I was expecting some good passes as well.”

English Valleys Head Coach Keshaun Kennedy described the win with, “They played for each other. That was the huge part. Everything else seemed effortless all around. When you have been through so much all year, and you get your teeth kicked in time after time, you start to realize ‘I’m pretty good myself.’ You get a mentality of being tired of losing, and tonight was one of those nights. They came in with a mentality to get business done, and they showed that for all four quarters.”

The Bears advance to the first round of the Class 1A Substate 6: District 11 bracket, where they will visit the top seeded Keota Eagles. The Eagles won both regular season matchups, and are currently ranked the sixth best team in Class 1A.