This past weekend the Cobra boys varsity basketball team participated in the 29th annual Weiner Basketball tournament, hosted by the Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community High School located in Baltimore, MD. The boys took home third place out of six.
The other participating teams were HANC from Uniondale, New York, Yavneh from Dallas, Texas, CHAT from Toronto, Canada, Boyar from Jerusalem, Israel, and of course the hosts, the Beth Tfiloh Warriors.
The boys arrived Wednesday afternoon a little behind schedule. They played their first game versus Boyar, which was a nice win. Their second game was a tough loss against the hosting BT Warriors; this game was even harder because of the hometown crowd. Spectacular play was exhibited in both contests.
On Thursday morning the team faced off against the CHAT Tigers, playing well again and coming out on top. Then, in between games the group took a tour of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The second game was against the Yavneh Bulldogs and was again a tough loss, but the Cobras played right up to the Bulldogs for all 28 minutes (at the tournament, games were played with seven minute quarters instead of eight, as well as with a 35 second shot clock).
That night the Cobras were addressed by Israel’s Minister of Education and Diaspora affairs, MK Naftali Bennet.
On Friday morning the team had their last game in the round robin segment of the tourney. They played the only other Yeshiva League team in the tournament, the HANC Hurricanes, and won in overtime.
This placed the Cobras as the 2 out of 6 seeds for the tournament’s semi-final portion. Because of their previous win, HANC was placed as the 3 seed and the two teams were to face off for the second time in the same day; this game carried much more weight.
Unfortunately, the Cobras were not able to close out the second game against HANC, so they were to play CHAT in the third place game on Saturday night.
Shabbat was pleasant and restful. All players spent Friday night with their hosts; on Shabbat they spent the day at the school, starting with Shacharit in the morning and concluding with Havdalah in the evening. The Cobras met and socialized with athletes from the other teams.
Due to SAT testing the following morning, three of the Cobras, Sam Bernstein, Sam Raab and Doni Schanzer had to leave right after Shabbat. This sent Kushner into the third-place game missing three players, which made this second game versus CHAT much closer than the first. In the end, the Cobras still won and took home third place.
The tournament closed out with an award ceremony, where Arthur Greenfield got Second Team and Sam Bernstein got First Team.
By Jonah Bash
