Maryland Elite secures first tournament championship

This year Chris takes the court with the AAU Maryland Elite in the D2 15U. The team contains a core of the athletes from last year's 14U Chesapeake Bay Breakers. As the only warm-up before the critical Maryland AAU tournament--a national qualifier, the team traveled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for a 3-game minimum tournament at Steel High.

The 15U Elite defeated West York on Friday (I was not at that game, margin of victory about 14), and followed that victory with Saturday wins against Bashore [43-29] and United Athletics [50-22], to take them 3-0 into the championship game. For the tournament championship, the Elite faced again West York in a more tightly contested game.

The Elite took an early lead (before Laura and I realized that the game had started--schedules were approximate, apparently) and played the first half with varying modest leads, but the score was effectively knotted at halftime. The lead came and went throughout the second half, with Monty extending the lead at the free-throw line to 7 with 0:28, and West York chipping the lead to 4 before the final buzzer. Final score 35-31.