The 14 members of the 2025 Mountain League Champion Fannin County Middle School eighth grade girls basketball team had a remarkable season and it is due to overcoming lots of challenges and never giving up.
“I think they learned a lot of valuable lessons not just in basketball, but in life. We had to overcome some adversity that happened throughout the season (like injuries) and kept pushing through. They took a lot away from that and it really showed that last game,” said Head Coach Natasha Anderson.
That last game was the title game with Lumpkin County December 17 which the Lady Rebels won 34-27. The team finished 13-2 on the season. This years winning campaign began with three victories over White and Union counties, and Clear Creek Middle School in Ellijay before playing Lumpkin County Nov. 3. Lumpkin defeated Fannin 40-31. “We had to realize that we weren’t the best and people were going to be better, so we had to strive to get better.”
The team did get better. They won four in a row, then after falling to Christian Heritage Middle School November 21, they won the remaining four regular season games against Clear Creek, Lumpkin, Pickens and Dawson. Then, they defeated Clear Creek in the league semi-finals 47-29 to reach the title game.
Fannin defeated those teams an average of 20 points per game.
“The may not have won every game like they had hoped, but defeating Lumpkin County in the title game after losing to them earlier in the season was the ultimate way to cap off the season,” Anderson said.
This season featured a stellar cast. It included eighth graders Gracie Gray, Ryann King, Sophie Price, Bailee Rhodes, Hadlee Patterson, and Elizabeth Evans. It also included seventh graders Emma Kay, Annie Dockery, Bristol Hawkins, Emilie Hamilton, Alex Evans, Khloe Kay, and Olivia Rainho, as well as sixth grader Oakley Baker.
Anderson said her starters did great this year.
Gray started as a forward. “She was probably the biggest offensive help this year. She was most of the time the leading scorer in the games. She’s developed her outside shot pretty well and can take the ball to the basket very well,” Anderson said.
King started at point guard. “She definitely set the tone for the game by handling the basketball and pushing ahead and sometimes was the second leading scorer in the games,” Anderson said.
Patterson was the starting center/post player. “She had two or three pretty good games at the end of the season. She definitely had some huge rebounding and defense for us in the championship game,” Anderson said.
Price was a starting guard. ”She is not a deep offensive threat, but her defense definitely helped out a whole lot,” Anderson said.
Rhodes was a starting guard. “In the championship game, she hit a couple of three’s. She was a pretty good overall rounded player. She had some defensive effort and offensively, she could put in some points when it mattered,” Anderson said.
For the season, Gray led offensively with 216 points scored. King followed with 134 points. Gray was also the leading rebounder with 76 while Patterson had 59.