Hartshorne 5th Grader Gets Her First Basket In Championship Game

A little girl's dream of playing in a basketball game came true recently.

Ten-year-old Elli Maddux is Autistic. She loves princesses and dressing up like one. She also loves basketball, even though she wasn’t sure about the sport at first.

“I didn't want to go because there was a loud buzzer,” she said.

But when she went to her first practice, Elli knew basketball was for her.

“It was so fun,” she said.

Elli is on the Hartshorne Miners' fifth-grade team, but she'd never played in a game until Friday during the championship game against Hartshorne's rival, Wilburton.

You can imagine Elli's excitement when her coach put her in.

“Really happy,” she said.

Elli's teammate passed her the ball right away and she headed straight for the lane but lost the ball. A player on the other team grabbed it and tossed it back to Elli.

She took a shot but missed. The Wilburton player rebounded, and, again, handed the ball back to Elli.

She tried again and scored two points for her team.

The crowd went wild.

“My team cheered and my crowd cheered,” Elli said.

The players on the other team cheered, too.

“They feeled so good for me,” Elli said.

But no one felt better than Elli, who made a basket and went home a champion.

Elli's team won the game, making them the fifth-grade champions.