Thanks Nachum!

Today on the Tuesday Morning JM in the AM Sports update, upsets, upsets and more upsets dominate the Yeshiva League playoffs but a favorite takes the crown at the 2016 Martin Weiselberg Memorial Hockey Tournament. All that and more straight ahead, good morning, I’m Elliot Weiselberg.

There is an old adage that goes that in the playoffs, it comes down to one game and anything can happen. In the last week across the Yeshiva League, this has become the mantra with several top teams going down in the early stages of the playoffs.

We’ll start in Boys varsity softball, where there were 3 undefeated division winners heading into the first round. After the first round, however, only 1 remains as DRS and Shaare Torah fell in quarterfinal action. The Wildcats found themselves on the wrong side of a 3-2 decision to defending champion Hillel while Shaare Torah was shut out 6-0 by MAY. This leaves Frisch as the only undefeated team left in the bunch, facing Flatbush tomorrow night. The winner of that game will face Hillel while MAY awaits the winner of HANC vs. YDE.

In Boys JV Softball, the top 2 seeds bowed out in the first round in surprising fashion. Benny Miller threw a shutout and helped his own cause with an RBI for the only run of the game as DRS upset top seed YDE, 1-0. The Wildcats will meet JEC in the semifinals. The Thunder topped Maor 2-1 to advance. In the other bracket, though, in a rematch of last year’s championship game, HAFTR gained a measure of revenge, knocking off 2nd seeded MAY in a barnburner 11-8. HAFTR will now await the winner of MTA and the highest remaining seed, Hillel on Friday.

Moving over to Girls Hockey, it’s now an All-West affair as top seeds Heschel and Kushner advance easily with wins over North Shore and Central. But joining them will be the other entrants from their division as Maayanot shut out East 2nd seed HAFTR Sunday night, 1-0 and West #4 seed Frisch stunned East division champion SAR 5-4 in Riverdale. Frisch keeps their championship defense alive and will face Kushner while Maayanot will travel to Heschel in the semifinals.

Boys Soccer held no major upsets as the top 4 teams in Varsity, HANC, SAR, Kushner and DRS all advanced, and the top 2 teams in JV, TABC and DRS will match up in the finals.

This past Sunday, the 11th annual Martin Weiselberg Memorial Tournament was held in Yeshiva Har Torah. Eight junior high hockey teams from the NY and NJ leagues met up, playing two round robin games for the right to join an elite group that have capped off their school year as the top Junior High school team in the area. The morning looked bleak for the New York teams as Moriah blanked defending champion HANC 1-0, Yavneh shut out defending runner-up YCQ 2-0 and Noam bageled host Har Torah 4-0 before HALB salvaged a bit of league dignity, defeating Kushner 2-1 in a shootout. In the afternoon, Moriah and Yavneh continued their success with 2-1 wins over YCQ and 4-2 wins over HANC respectively to earn the Group A playoff berths. In group B, Noam defeated HALB 1-0 in a shootout to earn the top spot, while HALB’s loss forced them into a tie with Kushner who came back in the 3rd period to defeat Har Torah 3-1. As it is in the tournament, ties at the end of the round robin were settled by a shootout and HALB took it, downing Kushner 2-1 to advance.

In the semifinals, upstart Yavneh knocked off favored Moriah team 4-1 on two goals by Zach Levy. In the other semifinals, it was Jake Rothenberg and Elliot Eisner combining for the 2-1 Noam victory. Noam Goalie Charles Gibber had an all-day shutout streak snapped with 1:31 to go in the 3rd period on a shot by Benjy Rose to bring HALB within one but no closer to set up the all-HAYMISH affair.

In the finals, Rothenberg and Eisner combined to give Noam a 3-0 lead deep in the third, however, Yavneh would make things interesting on two goals by Zach Levy, tying a single-tournament record with 7 on the day. The Redhawks would fight furiously for the last 30 seconds but Noam held tough closing out the tournament win. Eisner took home the Tournament MVP trophy curtesy of Crown Trophy with 4 key goals and an impressive day. For their efforts, Gibber and Levy were awarded 2 of the 10 All-Tournament team awards. While it’s early, keep a look out for Levy who is only a 7th grader and will surely challenge for the career goals record next year.

On the fundraising side of the event, congratulations to YCQ for breaking another record, bringing in close to $3,000 as the event shattered its goal and eclipsed its previous one-day mark, and crossed the $50,000 mark since the tournament’s inception. Thank you to the sponsors MTA, Off the Wall Frozen Yogurt, Select Land Services, The Court Report, Camp Dovid, Crown Trophy, Pizza Nosh of Brooklyn and Fruits in Chocolate, as well as LNS Enterprises for the amazing t-shirts and gift bags created for all participants and of course a special thank you to all who tuned in for the event contributed and came out to participate.

A special Thank you to Yeshiva Har Torah for playing host to its 9th tournament

And that was your Tuesday Morning JM in the AM Sports Update, I’m Elliot Weiselberg.