CHAMPIONS AND DIGNITARIES HONORED AT SEASON ENDING BANQUETS
COOK, PAPAZIAN, FISHMAN AND QURTMAN MVP’S
ARROYO, COLEMAN, AGUILAR, RUBIN ARE TOP FIRST YEAR PLAYERS
ZAK, AL-SHAWE, JOHNSON, SORADY BEST NEWCOMERS
BARACY, RHEE, MITCHELL MAKE BEST JUMPS
UPPIES GO TO JENKINS, ZELENOVIC, STABILINI AND TEWODROS
RECORDS SET THROUGHOUT THE LEAGUE AS FINAL STATS DELIVERED
WINTER LEAGUE UNDER WAY TOMORROW
As one can plainly see from the monster banner headline above, the awards flowed like juice drinks with pizza at today’s seasonal awards banquets held to officially finish off the Fall 2017 youth basketball season at the Santa Monica YMCA.
The four league champions, the Rookie Sharks (Annika Cook), Bantam Lakers (Eric Papazian), Minor Thunder (Jaden Fishman) and Major Vipers (Zion Qurtman) and their Most Valuable Players were all honored in front of capacity throngs all day long in the second floor community room.
Top first year players in their divisions included Benny Arroyo, London Coleman, Miles Aguilar and Sam Rubin, with top newcomers (that is to say first season playing here at the Samo Y at all in our league) Joseph Zak, Zayd Al-Shawe, Roderick Johnson and Tommy Sorady taking home some hardware.
The best in making the jump from one division to the next this season were Max Baracy, Chris Rhee and Milyon Mitchell.
Free throwing excellence awards, named for sharpshooting ex-NBA player (and co-inventor of TV sports instant replay) Hal Uplinger were given out to Niftalem Tewodros, who set an all time single season percentage record going 17-21 for an 81 percent clip, Chase Jenkins, Marko Zelenovic and Lorenzo Stabilini.
Jenkins joins older brother Brandon as the only brother combination to have won the prestigious honor.
The All-league teams were announced to the crowd, and are listed in this issue, along with a detailed breakdown of every team and player’s statistics through the entire season, and a listing of the top ten single game and entire season marks for each statistical category.
There was a wonderful and heartfelt closing moment when four long time standouts were sent on their way to travel leagues in Qurtman, Dash Decker, Nasir Luna and Keegan Fleigner.
Fleigner has been with the league consistently since it’s reforming in the Fall of 2011.
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The winter teams have all been selected and if you are playing in the winter league, you ought to hear from your coach by the end of today, but if not, quite soon. Practices begin tomorrow in anticipation of another full season of games starting in mid-January, with the official schedule due out late this week.
Spring league registration opens in early February, with play from March through June.
Happy Holidays, Happy New Year and we’ll see you in 2018!
