By Randy Arrington
LURAY — Page Valley News takes a brief deviation from our winter high school sports coverage (now completed) to acknowledge excellence in sports at the middle school level. While we normally don’t cover middle school sports, we make an exception here due to the extraordinary nature of the feat achieved, and what it may mean for the future of LHS girls basketball.
At the conclusion of the 2023-24 season, the Luray Middle School girls basketball team made history. The Bulldogs finished the season at a perfect 14-0 — not only believed to be the best record in school history for girls basketball, but also the first undefeated season in the LMS girls program.
Basketball at LMS goes back a while, but the girls program went dormant for a spell. Now, it’s definitely back on the map. Second-year head coach Carrie Owens has posted a record of 27-1 over the past two seasons.
“I love coaching, but the girls put in the work,” she said. “They make it happen.”
The LMS Bulldogs won the Bull Run District title back in mid-February after beating second-place Madison (11-3) in a thriller that went down to the final seconds.
“That last 10 seconds was very nerve-racking,” Coach Owens recalled. “There were four shots within 10 seconds.”
Despite battling a very tall group of eighth graders, the youthful Bulldogs came out on top of the middle school Mountaineers, 25-22, to become Bull Run champs. Luray won the title with only sixth and seventh graders on their 11-player roster.
“They have shown that height doesn’t matter,” Coach Owens said. “They are small, but they play big.”
The Bulldogs had won the district title the year before and went 12-1, but with a group of eighth graders that went on to the junior varsity squad.
“This group of girls is special,” Coach Owens said of this year’s team. “Nobody had any expectation that this would be done…some didn’t have court experience. They just busted their butts, and they do whatever you tell them to do and it was just a pleasure to coach them this season.”
The boys program at LMS went undefeated in 2020, producing several players that were on this year’s varsity Bulldog squad that won the Region 2B title and advanced to the state tournament. Coach Owens hopes the same trend may hold true for the girls she has coached over the last two years at LMS.
“Last year’s girls combined with this year’s girls…I feel is the future of the Luray basketball program.”
For more information on Luray Middle School,
visit https://www.pagecounty.k12.va.us/o/luray-ms
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