LIVINGSTON — Butte’s Ava Jurenic and Jerzi Nichols captured Elks Hoop Shoot state titles Saturday at Park County High School.
The two Butte girls — along with the other four state champions — will now head to the Regional Semi-Finals in Rapid City, South Dakota March 8 to complete with state champions from North Dakota and South Dakota. The regional champions will advance to the National Finals April 26 in Chicago, and the national champions will have their names digitally inscribed at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Jurenic won the state title in the girls’ 8-9 age group. She made 16 free throws, beating second-place Maesa Newman of Florence by two shots.
Nichols won the girls’ 10-11 division with 12 makes, edging Delanie Harper of Livingston by one shot.
Butte’s Tenley Osborne placed second in the girls’ 12-13 age group. She made 21out of 25, one less than champion Pressley Neumann of Florence.
Dawson Luedtke of Butte took fourth in the boys’ 8-9 group, making 14 shots.
Other state champions are Missoula’s Braxton Pickering (boys’ 8-9), Anaconda’s Tre Estes (boys’10-11) and Glendive’s Maverick Murphy (boys’ 12-13).
The state champions got their start by winning their local shoot and then a district shoot. Jurenic and Nichols won the local shoot at the Maroon Activities Center in November. They advanced to the State Shoot at the South District Hoop Shoot in Dillon.
Montana has sent 47 boys and 50 girls to the National Finals since the inception of the Elks Hoop Shoot program. That includes 10 Montanans who won national championships.
The most recent state champion from the Treasure State is Ellison Graham, an eighth grader at East Middle School who is a contributor for the Butte High varsity girls’ basketball team.
Graham won the girls’ 8-9 title for 2020. However, Graham, who was living in Belt at the time, won the title in a virtual shoot after a year delay caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Click the links below for complete results from the State Hoop Shoot and a history of Montana champions.
The ButteCast with Bill Foley 