Four days, four great games

We returned to our New York home on Monday morning after four days in Brookline, MA, for the Maimonides School Invitational Basketball Tournament in Memory of Leland Gelman (Maimonides School Class of 1982).

Watching Joshua play, we were immediately struck by how much his skills have matured since his start on the team as a freshman last year. He is far more confident, and dare I say a bit more aggressive, on the court than he was last year. So, it was no surprise that he played quite a bit more and even somewhat earlier (he started in the second game) in each game than he had as a new, and only freshman, member of the team last year.

This is a relatively small tournament, and this year involved four schools:

PARTICIPATING TEAMS - BOYS

Maimonides School (Brookline, MA)

Kohelet Yeshiva High School (Merion, PA)

Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School (Livington, NJ)

Rambam Mesivta High School (Lawrence, NY)

PARTICIPATING TEAMS - GIRLS

Maimonides Schoo l(Brookline, MA)

Kohelet Yeshiva High School (Merion, PA)

Melvin J. Berman Hebrew Academy (Rockville, MD)

Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School (Lawrence, NY)

All of the M-Cats games were played at Maimonides, so we drove the 25 miles from Sharon up to Brookline, the ride three of our grandchildren take on the bus every day, four times in four days. But it was a ride of love and joy, not only to see Joshua on the court but also to cheer along with the team as they won all four of their games and hence the championship! The M-Cats girls’ team did just as well, winning all four of their games. It happens that we have known the father of one of the girls on that team for many years, because he is the younger brother of one of our longest-term friends who we remember from visits with their parents to Rochester when he was just in junior high school.

Keep an eye on #44 toward the end of this short video that Eliana managed to capture on her phone.

The final scores for the four games the M-Cats boys team played:

Day 1	Thursday evening	Maimonides – 66	Berman – 33
Day 2	Friday morning	Maimonides – 51	Kushner – 34
Day 3	Saturday night	Maimonides – 74	Kohelet – 46
Day 4	Sunday afternoon	Maimonides – 64	Kushner - 41

We returned home exhausted but so glad we were able to be there for all four games and to help celebrate with dinner out at Kosher Wok in Brookline on Sunday evening. Great job, M-Cats! We look forward to seeing as many games as we can this season, including the M-Cats return to the Sarachek Tournament at Yeshiva University in New York next March.

Love,

Rebecca