Winnipeg teams in 2017 NABA tournament

Winnipeg NABA took five teams to the 30^th annual North American Basketball Association (NABA) tournament held at Spooky Nook Sports Complex in Manheim, PA on the Labour Day weekend.

Training from spring into summer, these boys dedicated their time and devotion to basketball.

Although the Tykes division was shocked by the skills of the other teams, they did not give up. They played hard to get a basket. Starting at this age only grooms them to become stronger players in the future.

The Peewee team battled for the trophy in a division of 17 teams. This group of boys, coached by Eric Fernandez, are new o NABA and they are tough, but the competition that weekend was tougher. They played against, Central Jersey, Toronto, Vaughn and New York. We hope they set their mind to playing again and that they are determined to get a trophy from this tournament in the future.

Having learned that Coach Riley had 14 teams in the Bantam division made it tough from the start. Although this team has lots of skill, speed and height, when they got to the court, they came up short a point or two – making it hard to swallow the defeat. They fell behind in the first half and pulled themselves out of the hole, but it wasn’t enough to get the win. Overall they did a great job representing Winnipeg. They are a tough group to beat.

The Juniors had a dozen teams to beat. Again, in each game played this team played they were short one by only one or two points. It got heated on the court at times but the referees kept it cool. It’s tough to really want it and just miss it by such a small margin. “There’s always next year boys,” as Coach Jai would say.

Coach Angel gave his farewell speech to these young men at the beginning of the tournament. He will be concentrating on his son’s team for the future. The best thing to happen was a farewell championship trophy these boys gave to him from this tournament. It wasn’t easy getting through three buzzer beaters, an overtime game and such rough and tough competition from the seven teams faced to get the gold. Congratulations boys well deserved!

Many thanks go to our sponsors, parents, players, and especially the coaches for spending the time with these boys. They couldn’t have done it without all of you! We can do this again next year at NABA Montreal in 2018!

– From a report by Rizza Valera