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December 13, 2024
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West Orange Coach Leads Champion Basketball Team

Sports fans love champions. Champion teams. Champion players. Champion coaches. At the end of every sports season, in every sport, one team emerges as a champion, coached by a champion coach. However, rarely does one coach emerge as a champion in back-to-back seasons for two different sports.

Stephen Loeb of West Orange has coached in the West Orange Mountaintop League since the fall of 2009. Last month his girls middle school basketball team, the Dream, completed an 11-1-1 season and won the championship game 25-24 over the West Orange Liberty. In the fall, Loeb had also coached Team Spain to an undefeated season and a West Orange Mountaintop Soccer League Championship. The two championship teams make five championship trophies that Loeb’s teams have won over 7 years.

With the March 20 win, Loeb has now not lost a game in over a year—a run of 54 weeks that includes 24 games without a loss. The last loss came on March 3, 2015.

This spring’s championship game was a back and forth affair. The Dream trailed 9-0 after one quarter, and 11-3 at halftime. However, the team fought back, cutting the deficit to a basket by the end of the third quarter. The final quarter again saw both teams trading the lead.

“The gym was raucous,” Loeb said. “The parents and other spectators were really getting into it. It was a great atmosphere and really spurred the kids on to the win.”

Loeb’s basketball team included his daughter Amalia, and Dalia Kushnir, both in the sixth grade at the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy in Livingston. The winning soccer team also had Amalia on it, as well as another daughter, eighth grader Dalia Loeb, who also attends JKHA.

The Loebs are now looking forward to the fall soccer season.

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