All County Basketball Honors

We at the Idaho Enterprise are continuing our tradition of naming our all county first and second team honors.  In addition to naming a first and second team we have added a couple more honors to our list.  For basketball we will be naming a sixth man of the year as well as an overall player of the year for both the boys and girls teams.  The sixth man and overall player of the year will not be included on the first or second teams as those honors would stand on their own.  We were fortunate enough to have several quality players in the county this year making some of these decisions very difficult ones to make.  We also had some unusual circumstances arise for some of the teams and their players this season particularly when it came to the North Gem and Grace boys teams.  After much debate we decided that the following factors would be considered in selecting this year’s teams: statistics, impact on the team, sportsmanship, consistency, and number of games played.  We are aware that there are some great players that missed several games for a variety of reasons and we took all of that into consideration.

We will start things off by naming our overall player of the year for both the boys and the girls.  For the boys one player in particular stood out among the rest.  Our player of the year was always capable of getting a basket when his team most needed it.  He also finished his season playing at state scoring a very impressive seventy-five points over the three day tournament.  Our boys all county player of the year goes to Cooper Thompson.  Cooper is a junior at Soda Springs.  Cooper is a well balanced player whose quickness allows him to create turnovers as well as get to the rim while also being able to hit shots from outside.  Moving on to the girls overall player of the year this race was a little closer with a few girls capable of claiming the top spot.  In the end our all county girls player of the year showed great leadership, hard work and proficiency.  Our girls all county player of the year goes to Abby Goodin.  Abby is a senior at Soda Springs High School.  Abby showed real determination on the court and even on those nights when the game wasn’t going her way she continued to give it her all.  

Next we will move on to our sixth man of the year award.  In most cases when we talk about a sixth man it usually refers to a player that is good enough to be a starter but due to depth or strategy they are brought off the bench.  Occasionally they will be awarded a starting spot but not often.  In our all county honors the sixth man award was a very tight race with several players in contention for both the boys and girls.  It would have been easier to name several sixth men of the year but that isn’t how these honors work so without any further ado our boys sixth man of the year goes to Dakoda Billman.  Dakoda is a senior at Soda Springs High School.  Though Dakoda did earn the starting role on a few occasions his primary role came from coming off of the bench.  Dakoda stepped in and played a huge role for the Cardinals under the basket both offensively and defensively.  On the girls side our sixth man of the year goes to Presleigh Steadman.  Presleigh is a sophomore at Grace High School.  Presleigh came off the bench for the Lady Grizzlies in a big way by scoring and handling the ball.  Presleigh will likely take one of the starting roles for Grace next season with the loss of some seniors to graduation.

A big congratulations to the four players listed above and to the rest of those that are listed on the teams below.  Several of the players named will be back next season giving fans another opportunity to watch them play while giving themselves another shot at making next year’s list.

Boys All County Player Of The Year      Girls All County Player Of The Year

Cooper Thompson                                    Abby Goodin

Boys Sixth Man Of The Year                    Girls Sixth Man Of The Year

Dakoda Billman                                            Presleigh Steadman

First Team All County Boys                      First Team All County Girls

Gavin Hansen (Soda Springs)                Gracie Moldenhauer (Soda Springs)

Konner McWilliams (Soda Springs)        Cortnee Gronning (Soda Springs)

Derek Hill (Grace)                                   Rosie Harris (Soda Springs)

Braden Kimball (Grace)                          Kallie Stoddard (Grace)

Ryver Hayden (North Gem)                     Tessica Jorgensen (Grace)

Second Team All County Boys          Second Team All County Girls

Kyen Kirby (Soda Springs)                   Shalyn Thompson (North Gem)

Preston Ozburn (Soda Springs)           Karlie Christensen (Grace)

Carson Reeves (Grace)                        Kamryn Mansfield (Grace)

Parker Yost (Grace)                              Ellie Wood (Soda Springs)

Craig Yost (North Gem)                         Madilyn Kempe (Soda Springs)