Saint Jo
The Saint Jo Panthers won their hosted tournament last week.
The Panthers went 5-0, winning by double-digits in all of their games.
During pool play Saint Jo beat Newcastle by 50 points (89-39) and Sacred Heart by 20 points (60-40). Bracket play saw the Panthers win even more dominantly first against Petrolia 71-19 and then district opponent Prairie Valley 60-22.
This put them in the championship game against a 2A Muenster program that not only is used to success, but with it only being 10 miles down the road and with current Athletic Director Mark Stevens spending seven years there, the athletic programs are tight.
Usually the bigger Hornets beat up on Saint Jo teams at worse or the Panthers try to keep it close at best during pre-district matchups, but on Saturday that was flipped. Saint Jo beat Muenster 56-46 to win the overall tournament championship.
Kile Thurman was named the tournament’s most valuable player. Brice Durham and Collin Thomas were named to the all-tournament team.

Nocona
The Nocona Indians played in their first tournament at Dodd City last week.
The Indians went 2-2 overall to finish in fourth place at the tournament.
Nocona played two games during pools on Thursday. The first game was a rematch against Bells from earlier in the week. The Panthers then beat the Indians 46-36 and again in pools 53-33.
Nocona was able to bounce back later in the day, winning a close game against tournament host Dodd City 53-47, a state-ranked 1A team.
Going into bracket play two days later, the Indians won another close game, this one against Tom Bean 59-52.
This put Nocona into a game against North Hopkins for third place. The Panthers are a 2A state-ranked team and unfortunately the Indians did not play their best. North Hopkins won 60-36 as Nocona finished fourth.

Prairie Valley
The Prairie Valley Bulldogs played at Saint Jo’s tournament last week to get some work in.
The young Bulldogs went 2-3 overall to finish in fourth place.
Prairie Valley’s first game of the tournament came against 2A Muenster. The Bulldogs lost 55-30.
Prairie Valley bounced back in the second game of pool play against Petrolia, winning 41-30.
The next day the Bulldogs beat Nocona’s JV team 54-30. To get a chance to play for the championship game and another chance at Muenster, Prairie Valley would have to beat district opponent Saint Jo. The Panthers won 60-22, pushing the Bulldogs to play Sacred Heart in the third place game.
Unfortunately, Prairie Valley lost 65-31 to finish fourth overall.

Gold-Burg
The Gold-Burg Bears struggled at the Saint Jo tournament last week.
Out of the five games played, the four that were reported were all losses.
Gold-Burg lost to Electra 46-34 to start out the tournament. The Bears lost their closest game of the tournament to Petrolia 43-40.
Gold-Burg then got matched up against 2A Muenster and lost 89-18. The last game was a rematch against Electra which did not go better as the Bears lost 46-24.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.