As the cases of Corona continue to rise, yeshiva league basketball action continues to diminish. These circumstances are definity unfortunate, but it leads to a greater appreciation of the games that do not get postponed. This past week there were only three games played league wide, but the constant action made sure to keep the entire league intrigued.
Coming into Wednesday night’s showcase, The Magen Abraham Kings were on a tear, winning their past two games against higher seeded teams in HAFTR and North Shore, but were in for a challenge while visiting the Kushner Cobas. The Cobras were coming off a gut wrenching defeat against the Frisch Cougars, a game in which the Cobras displayed skill, but were simply outmatched by the Cougars. Senior leaders Ben Huppert and Mitch Liebov were determined to get back in the win column against the Kings and were relentless on the court. On the offensive end the Cobras were a sight to witness with Huppert and Liebov combining for thirty nine of the Cobras fifty nine points. Defensively, the Cobras as an entity were successful in preventing offensive opportunities from Albert Swaid and Aaron Levy, both of whom are overly capable scorers on a consistent basis. This game exceeded the anticipated hype, but the following games of the week provided equal excitement.
On Thursday evening, the YDE Thunder hosted the eastern conference’s top seeded DRS Wildcats. The Thunder came into the game in high spirits after knocking off previous top seed, the Flatbush Falcons, a week earlier. The Wildcats came into the game with the knowledge that their focus on the defensive end needed to be containing YDE’s Isaac Tawil. As mentioned last week, Tawil has been a man on a mission offensively this season putting up two games with over forty points so far, including a fifty-six point showing against Rambam earlier this month. Unfortunately for the Thunder, DRS understood the assignment and were successful in preventing Tawil from having another hot night. On the offensive end for the Wildcats they displayed their consistently unselfish style of play, which in the past has had numerous players score in double figures, but against the Thunder it was Isaac Solomon and Ari Ivry leading the way with eighteen and sixteen points respectively.
The final matchup of the week featured the TABC Storm visiting a promising Ohr Yisrael team. Ohr Yiroel was coming off their first win in school history on the road against Rambam, but this time with the home court advantage they looked to hopefully steal a victory against the red hot TABC Storm. The Storm had other plans and desired to turn their three game winning streak into four and were successful in doing so. On the bright side for Ohr Yisrael, they displayed their potential with two players scoring in double figures, Moshe Alexander with fifteen and Charlie Maryles with a game high twenty four. In the end the Storm led by Yis Kaminetsky’s sixteen points were too much to handle and TABC escaped with the two point victory.