This year’s Frisch Cougars is one of the strongest clubs that the school has had in recent memory. Both the seniors and the juniors won JV championships as sophomores, the juniors having done so by way of an undefeated season last year. This is a team that knows how to win and has the personnel to do it.
Frisch lost second seniors from last year who led Frisch to a 10-4 regular season record, good for the second seed in the conference behind Heschel. Frisch’s season was ended in the semifinal round by DRS, who went on to win the MYHSAL championship game; DRS did not lose a game all season. In the Red Sarachek tournament hosted by Yeshiva University, the Cougars defeated their conference winner, Heschel, but lost to the Shalhevet Firehawks from California. This year, Frisch will look to avenge those losses.
This year’s starting lineup is led by five seniors: Isaac Laifer, Josh Dukas, Jordan Kleinhaus, Mark Abramovitz and Sam Fishman. The Cougars also have 3 key returning seniors coming off the bench: Zak Comet, Yisroel Solomon and JJ Zakheim. Each of these eight seniors has played for at least 3 years, most of whom have played for all 4 years of their high school careers. Frisch also has two seniors who are first-year players, Avi Nat and Yaron Schneider. The juniors will also be an integral part of the team this year if the Cougars expect to win a lot of games. The juniors are Jack Stepner, Moshe Shoenfeld, Stevie Paul, Noam Kuritzky, Asaf Miller, Judah Strulowitz, Jack Levine and Alex Paul. The Cougars’ biggest strength is their depth; any 5 players could probably put together a very strong winning season.
The Cougars recently took part in a high school AAU tournament in Hillburn, New York, in which they won three consecutive games to sweep the tournament. They open their season at home on November 2nd, and then have a stretch of 8 games in just a couple weeks, including the Steve Glouberman tournament in Los Angeles, which will take place from November 10-13. Led by coaches Joe Schwartz and Eli Davidoff, the Cougars look forward to a fun, competitive, and successful season.
