Pekin Boys Spoil English Valleys Senior Night

NORTH ENGLISH—English Valleys Bears held their senior night on February 5 in a matchup against the Pekin Panthers. The Panthers played spoiler and came home with the 69-34 victory. 

Before the game, the Bears celebrated the careers of seniors Myles Grove. A.J. Bruns and Jonanthyn Downing.

English Valleys Head Coach Keshaun Kennedy described what these seniors meant to the program, and himself, with, “This has been a crew that has been through quite a bit. They mean a lot to me. This is a smaller class, so we have become close like family.”

Pekin senior guard Sven Dahlstrom started the game red hot with 10 points in the first three minutes of play as the Panthers stormed out to a 20-11 first quarter lead. 

  Dahlstrom went on to lead all scorers with 22 points, as the Panthers secured the 69-34 victory. 

Pekin Head Coach John Swanson spoke of the performance from Dahlstrom with, “Just a guy that is locked in, and competing at a high level in his senior year campaign. He wants to go out a winner. Excited for him and his success late in the year. He propelled us with some key threes in some big run situations, and helped us put the game away there in the second half.”

Two other Panthers hit double digits on the night: senior JaeDon Wolver with 12 and junior Will Adam with 10. Wolver secured a double double on the night with a team high 12 rebounds.

One of the big adjustments for the Panthers in this game was putting senior JaeDon Wolver at the head of the 1-2-2 press. “Team’s underestimate the quickness and size of Jae(Don Wolver). He has those go-go gadget arms, so when he gets a deflection he can throw it down on the other end. He really intimidates guys and gets them thinking too much. It's something we can rely on too much, but throwing it in every once in a while messes with teams. He got some key steals and easy buckets off that,” explain Coach Swanson.

The Panthers received an interesting draw for the postseason, as they will visit the WACO Warriors. These two teams are set to play later this week, before postseason play starts. So essentially, these two teams get a preview of their first round matchup in their last regular season game.

The Bears will host Meskwaki Settlement for their play-game. If they win, they will head to Keota high school on February 12 for a matchup with the sixth ranked Eagles.