Basketball
York's Charlie Brown lives on through annual tournament
By Stan Ross
TOURNEY TIME - The Charlie Brown Basketball Tournament got underway this past week with hard-fought games from top to bottom. Here York's Eli Loeffler rifles a pass in a fifth-grade match-up against the Hampton Attack. Action continues this coming week at York High School and York Middle School.
Photo by Steve Rasche
There are 60 teams - coming from as far away as Hampton, N.H., to the south to Falmouth to the north, in three age groups for both boys and girls - will have played 108 games in this double-elimination tournament when it winds up with six championship games this Sunday, March 4.
There were 49 games played Feb. 23 through 25 and there will be eight more each night this week except Thursday, which is listed as "if needed, in case of snow."
Saturday, March 3, there are 11 games scheduled in the York High School and York Middle School gymnasiums starting at 9 a.m.
Six final games, and championship awards, are scheduled for Sunday, March 4, beginning at 9 a.m. at York High School.
With the heavy schedule of games being played, time and space do not permit complete individual game coverage, but we will be present for the finals.
In the third- and fourth-grade girls' early round action, both Falmouth and Barrington, N.H., each won two games to advance in the winners' bracket. York, Kittery, Hampton and Saco will be scrambling from the losers' bracket.
In the third- and fourth-grade boys' action Deerfield, N.H., Marshwood, Kittery, Hampton and Portsmouth, N.H/, are still in the winners' bracket. York Interiors, York Wildcats, York Rockets and Wells will try to come back from the losers' bracket.
The fifth- and sixth-grade girls' have the Hampton Attack and York Sixth each with two wins while Falmouth, Wells Riptide, Kittery, Sanford and York Fifth each have one loss.
The largest flight is the fifth- and sixth-grade boys - with 17 teams - and York Fifth, Wells B, Kittery, St. Elizabeth, and South Portland Hoops are in the winners' bracket. Still alive in the losers' bracket are Marshwood, Hampton Attack, Deerfield, Hampton Heat, York Donovan, Dover Recreation, Hampton Attack Sixth and York-Todd.
Kittery and Seacoast Slam are on top in the seventh- and eighth-grade girls' division while Holy Trinity, New Durham, Wolfpack and Wells are in the losers' bracket.
Early results in the boys' seventh- and eighth-grade division show York Seventh, Marshwood Seventh, PCA, Seacoast Rigazio, Oyster River, Seacoast Warriors and York Eighth in the winners' bracket. Still alive in the losers' bracket are Exeter, Wells, Kittery and the Marshwood/Deerfield winner.
Some local highlights include the York-Donovan sixth-grade high scoring win over Wells, 35-28. York led by one, 26-25, after three periods. Then Haden Webster (game high 10) added two quick hoops and Tom Reid and Andrew LaMonica also scored in the final period.
The York fifth-grade team, paced by Josh Mitchell with 15 points including three treys, pulled away in the second half to defeat Hampton 32-12. Michael Gallagher with six and Jackson Cogger and Mitchell Hickey with four a piece also helped to secure the win.
Another York team, York-Todd, lost to a fast South Portland Hoops team by a score of 36-29. York led 16-15 at the half behind the rebounding of Aaron Todd and Alex Mercurio and trailed by only two, 26-24, going into the final period but foul trouble finally caught up with them.
There are plenty more good hoops, all for charity, and the price is right all the rest of this week.
Will I see you there?
