Youth season to end Saturday
By Sam Waller
Albany’s youth basketball teams played a partial schedule Saturday, Jan. 21, winning four of five games.
The boys played at Hawley with the girls at Eula.
The teams conclude their seasons Saturday, Jan. 28 with the boys teams playing at Hawley for the second week in a row while the girls play at Merkel.
The sixth grade boys will play Hawley at 10:00 a.m. and Jim Ned Blue at noon. The fifth grade boys will play Hawley at 10:00 a.m. and Merkel White at 1:00 p.m.
The sixth grade girls will play Eula at 10:00 a.m. and Hawley Maroon at 1:00 p.m. The fifth grade girls will play Eula White at 10:00 a.m. and Jim Ned Red at 1:00 p.m.
In last week’s games, the sixth grade girls won twice, beating Eula 14-7 and Hawley White 14-8 in overtime.
The sixth grade boys split two games, beating Merkel 28-16 before losing 40-28 to Jim Ned.
The fifth grade boys played just one game, edging Merkel Purple 25-23.
The fifth grade girls did not play because of the county livestock show.
GIRLS
Sixth Grade
Against Eula, Tinley Hefner and Hailey Gleitz each scored six points, while Sawyer Shoaf scored two.
Against Hawley White, Hailey Gleitz scored six points with Hefner and Keeley Britting scoring four apiece.
“Hailey Gleitz was able to get some steals that turned into extra possessions,” coach Susan Britting said. “Kynlee Milligan was aggressive on the ball and created a lot of turnovers that ended up in our favor.”
BOYS
Sixth Grade
Against Merkel, Albany scored enough in the first half to win with 17 points.
Lyle Wheeler and Sam Tidwell each scored six points with Blake Britting adding five. Trevor Bellah and Jathan Perez scored four points apiece with Levi Murphy getting two and Ace Townsend one.
Against Jim Ned, Albany trailed 16-14 at halftime before Jim Ned hit three 3-pointers in the second half to pull away. It was the first loss in two seasons for the Albany team, which was undefeated as fifth graders.
Britting led Albany with 11 points and Wheeler added nine. Bellah scored four points with Murphy and Perez each scoring two.
Fifth Grade
Albany battled back after a four-point halftime lead evaporated when Merkel opened the second half with a 9-0 run.
“The boys stayed in the game and played really good defense the last five minutes to pull out the win,” coach Morgan Smith said.
Luke Smith led Albany with nine points, while Patton Smith and McCoy Vaughn each scored six. Tusi Togia and Tank Johnson scored two points apiece.
Photos Scheduled
Team photos for all four youth teams will be taken at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 26 (today), in the main lobby of the high school gym.
Since all games for the age group are out of town, a special time was arranged that will hopefully be convenient for all team members.
Photos will be taken by The Albany News for a special youth basketball page after the Little Dribblers season. Photos will also be available for purchase.
