On March 10th, the Moriah 7b basketball team hosted the Yavneh 7b team in the semi-final playoff game where the winner moves on to the championship game and the loser hangs up their jersey until next season. Through the first 3 quarters, it seemed inevitable that Yavneh would be victorious. However, thanks to a big miracle, Moriah was able to get the win, 36-34, and advance to the championship game with the hopes of getting a two-peat.
Danny Weinberger set Yavneh’s pace as he opened up the game with a nice floater. For the remainder of the quarter, Max Zakheim continued the momentum, giving Yavneh a 10-2 lead, possibly the lowest scoring quarter in a semifinal 7th grade basketball game.
In the 2nd quarter, Moriah scored their 2nd basket. In fact, Moriah only scored 4 baskets in that quarter, the second basket coming off a sweet jumper by Jon Comet, as he nailed it in his defender’s face just inside the wing. Yavneh concluded the half ahead of Moriah, with the low score, 18-10.
As the 2nd half begun, Moriah felt more comfortable, led by their 6’ foot center, Gaby Katz and their shooting guard, Ethan Schechter. Katz led Moriah with the game-high 16 points followed by Isaac Horowitz and Schechter, each with 8. While Moriah was getting hot, Zakheim, the league’s best player, stole the show, as he astonished the fans with his fantastic “D-Rose” layups. Aside from Zakheim, Akiva Feit’s presence was also deeply felt as Moriah had an extremely difficult time of bringing the ball past half court. On the positive note, at the end of the 3rd quarter, Schechter banked in a long 2-ball, to tie the game at 24, which was the first time that Moriah showed any sign of possibly winning.
Heading into the 4th quarter in this semi playoff game tied at 24, all of the fans were on the edge of their seats knowing that the game would come down to the last few seconds. Both teams were back and forth with the scoring, between Katz’s offensive put-backs and Zakheim’s fastbreak layups. The real star of the 4th quarter was Horowitz, who scored 6 of his 8 points, including the game sealing layup. With 3 seconds left on the clock, Yavneh inbounded the ball to Zakheim for a possible game tying half-court shot but was not able to convert. Moriah will advance to the championship game vs. the winner of the SAR / Noam game, stay tuned…
By Zach Horowitz
