Sadie Nielson and Mikaela Murphy, of the Bow Valley Bobcats, have won two of the top prizes in Rocky View Sports senior girls basketball in a promising season that was left in limbo after the COVID-19 outbreak.

Guard Jorja Powers and centre Natasha Boisvenue were also named league all-stars.

in her last season of high school basketball, Nielson was named the league's MVP and will be playing for the SAIT Trojans next season.

It was an award she was hoping to win in her final season.

"I honestly wouldn't have got it without my team," says Nielson. "They were a super huge help. They push me through everything."

"I've been told Bow Valley hasn't won the MVP for the league before, so it was pretty exciting."

She says the core of the team has been playing together for years and messed to create a strong basketball culture.

Among this season's highlights was successfully defending their title at the Crescent Height Basketball Tournament. Few teams outside of Crescent Height have won the tournament in its 35-year history. Seniors Night was also special.

The Nielson family is synonymous with basketball. Her father is a long-time coach and before that played college ball. Her brother, Jake, plays for the U of C Dinos.

"It was a family tradition to play, and then I started loving it."

She looks forward to the challenge of playing for the SAIT Trojans while initially studying to be a pharmacy assistant, with hopes of further studies in medical technology.

Murphy has one more season with the Bobcats and was caught off guard when she received the call.

"We have quite a competitive league, so it was an honour to be selected. We have some really good players, not only from our team but others. Lots of the girls I've played against are pretty talented."

Moving to Cochrane in grade 6, basketball wasn't a sport commonly played where she lived previously. She was convinced to try it.

"It's, for sure, my favourite thing to do now, which is kind of cool that it's grown into that."

While it's disappointing to have the season cut short, she particularly feels for the grade 12 players and coaches.

"They put in so much work, and coaches put in so many hours, I was feeling for our team."

She's already missing the sport.

"I've kind of been going stir-crazy at home and running as much as I possibly can because I'm missing it."

Bobcats head coach Kris Nielson says both players had great seasons.

"Mikaela is outstanding on defense," says Coach Nielson. "I thought she was by far the best player in the league on defense."

On defense, she was assigned to cover top players. Typically playing man-to-man, she held her opponent to just 2.7 points per game.

"That's unbelievable," says Coach Nielson, "and that was against the best players in the league. It was an outstanding year for Mikaela."

He says Nielson was a solid three-point shooter.

"Being able to shoot threes at the rate that she's able to sink them was a beneficial aspect to our team's game this year."

That helped the Bobcats win by wider margins this season.

"We stepped it up this year, and a big part of that was the three-point shot."

The senior girls' Bobcats were ranked coming into the zone playdowns, behind Strathmore and Brooks. They aspired to win a berth in the provincials but we'll never know how it would have ended.

Still, in four years with the Bobcats girls program, starting with the junior team, Nielson believes much was accomplished. That includes creating a healthy rivalry against Cochrane High.

The team won the Rocky View Sports regular season with a perfect record before being upset by the Croxford Cavaliers for the divisional championship final.