The SAR girls varsity basketball team won the fourth annual Steve Glouberman, z”l, tournament in Los Angeles this past week. The five day long event featured 10 girls teams and nine boys teams from schools around the country. After landing really late at night, the Sting woke up early for their first game against the Ramaz Rams. With some accurate outside shooting and many offensive boards, they defeated Ramaz 46-30. That same day, SAR faced the NYHS Lions from Seattle. Capitalizing on their tight defense, SAR scored on multiple fast breaks, never looking back, defeating the Lions 50-10, on 21 points from Adira Orbach (‘19). Earning the second seed behind Frisch, the elimination round found SAR playing YULA, a local favorite. SAR’s defense was spectacular once again and held YULA to only six points, with a 38-6 victory.

A beautiful shabbaton was held in the greater Los Angeles community, featuring home hospitality for Friday night dinner, a wonderful oneg and inspirational Shabbat davening at Congregation Beth Jacob. After Shabbat, with the momentum SAR gained in the first round, they headed into the semifinals to face the home team, the Shalhevet Firehawks. In front of a packed gym, SAR opened the game with a 7-0 run and quickly quieted the crowd. SAR continued to play strong and great passing led to many easy baskets. The crowd was stunned as SAR won a decided victory, 55-27. SAR was headed to the Sunday morning championship game, where they would face Frisch, the number 1 overall seed, winners of the other division and long-time local yeshiva league rival. SAR opened with a strong 12-0 in the first four minutes of the game. Frisch tried to claw their way back into game, cutting the lead to eight, however a buzzer beater by Sophia Reich (‘20) at the end of the quarter shifted the momentum back into SAR’s favor as they took an 11 point lead into the half. SAR’s tenacious 1-3-1 defense held Frisch to only four points in the third quarter as they continued to add on to their lead. SAR won the championship 57-39, on 16 points from Bella Ingber (‘20) and 14 from Samantha Horowitz (‘20). Carrying the team on their shoulders, Orbach was named tournament MVP and Horowitz was named to the All Tournament Team. The SAR Sting could not have been this successful without the amazing coaching of Tali Zelenetz, and we want to thank Shalhevet as well as the Los Angeles community for hosting a wonderful event that we won’t soon forget.

By Sophia Reich, Class of 2020