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Pacific SportsBlogOkinawa-based sports reporter Dave Ornauer on military-related sports in the Far East. |
Class AA championship gazeback
Posted February 24th, 2008 by Dave OrnauerMusings and mutterings from the Dragon Hill Lodge on Yongsan Garrison, as Ornauer looks around for the guy who sells the eye toothpicks:
-- Many contributed to Seoul American's boys' third Class AA Tournament title in six years, perhaps none greater than senior Shawn Grandy. His chief ingredient: Defense, particularly his third-quarter clampdown on Kadena's Jamil Barney, who simply played an unconscious first half.
-- Grandy. Block on Barney. 2:40 left. Not a bigger play in any tournament anywhere the entire week. Period.
-- One apparent difference between Seoul American's 64-60 comeback victory and the Falcons' 78-62 romp over the Panthers at the New Year's Classic: the presence of Kadena senior point guard Roosevelt Payne. His first-half set-ups contributed mightily to Barney's 8-for-9 shooting from the field.
-- Speaking of shooting, the "Long-Distance Gang" did it once more for Kadena's girls. Brooke Hudson and Stephanie Eik each hit three three-point goals and the Panthers made it two straight championships at the Panther Pit, 59-53 over Seoul American.
-- We'll miss you, Coach Hicks.
-- Can there be anything more valuable to a team winning a Class AA title on its home court than a boisterous crowd? "Sixth man on the court," Seoul American boys coach Steve Boyd put it. Falcon Gym on Saturday, forget the sound meter; somebody break out the Richter Scale. Same goes for the Panther Pit; my ears are still ringing from the "Game to End All Games," Kadena's boys' 70-69 victory over Kubasaki on Feb. 29, 1992, let alone how loud it was on Saturday. I could barely hear people when I telephoned to find out how things were going. I know they couldn't hear me.
-- Home cooking continues to be mighty tasty for Class AA host teams. The last SEVEN girls hosts have won the tournament, and 12 of the last 17 dating back to 1986; the last non-host to win the Girls Class AA title was Nile C. Kinnick in 2001 on Okinawa. On the boys side? Nineteen host teams have reached Center Court, 12 of them winning.
-- What a fun week.
-- Pitchers, catchers, infielders, outfielders, sprinters, distance runners, throwers, hurdlers, jumpers, strikers, stoppers, sweepers, goalkeepers, midfielders, fullbacks and halfbacks report tomorrow! :)
john zivic
did he live thru the heart attack? Gary Smith
did john zivic life from heart attack?
gary l. smith sr
Great AA Boys Tournament
I saw many of the AA games last week. It was overall, in my opinion, a great tournament.
Seoul American battled for that championship. They came back from a 13-point deficit to Yokota in the quarter-final game and won by 3-point on OT. In the semi-final game they battled a tough St. Mary's team to the wire and won by 3-points. In the championship game they fought back from a second quarter 12-point deficit (9-point defict at the half) to Kadena to win by 4-points. Two of the top 4-finishers came from the same pool (Seoul American and ASIJ). Seoul American went undefeated in the tournament and Kadena and St. Mary's only lost 1-game.
JFK and Southern played a late game one night with Southern winning, but the neat thing about this game was with Southern winning and only 9-seconds to go in the game and Southern with the ball, you would think JFK would foul intentionally to stop the clock. Instead the JFK coach called a timeout and huddled her players. They broke from the timeout and didn't foul and the time expired. The two teams then huddled together and then broke with a thunderous shouting of, "Guam." That was sportsmanship. JFK accepted defeat graciously and the two teams supported each other.
St. Mary's is a tough team and one that nobody wants to play. They're good. I think I overheard the head coach say he expects about a 100 new high school boys next year to the school. Scary for the competition.
Kadena had a great tournament and Jamil Barney played very well.
All in all, Korea represented well in the A and AA tournaments. Korea teams took the championship in the Boys A (Yongsan International School of Seoul) and AA tournaments (Seoul American) and the AA girls from Seoul American took 2nd.
John Zivic?
What is the health status of Mr. Zivic?
Re: John Zivic
No change, last I heard. Still critical, but stable and under care at Chubu Central. I'll post when I know more.
Okinawa Baseball
Keep an eye on the Kubasaki Dragon baseball team...theyre determined to make a name for themselves in the Pacific. March 8th here we come.