Good Morning everyone. Straight ahead on this final Tuesday JM in the AM Sports Update of the 2013-2014 sports season, if you couldn’t tell from the intro music, after 9 years, I finally get to know what it feels like to win the big one and we have all of your Sarachek tournament action. Hello everyone, I’m Elliot Weiselberg.

The 2014 Bernard “Red” Sarachek tournament took place this weekend up at Yeshiva University, featuring 20 teams from around the nation taking part in five days of basketball action. Of the 20 participants, five Yeshiva League teams took part, Yeshiva League champion #2 seed North Shore, #3 seed HAFTR, # 5 TABC, #8 Frisch and #10 MTA. The first day of action saw TABC, Frisch and MTA all winners of their respective games allowing them to move on to the tier 1 section of the multilayered bracket system. MTA’s win was especially significant as they fended off a furious run from perennial contender Ida Crown in order to advance to Friday’s action. Friday saw the first Yeshiva League battle as Frisch surprised North Shore, knocking the Stars into the consolation bracket and advancing the Cougars onto the semifinals where they would play HAFTR, winners of their quarterfinal with New Jew. In the other half of the bracket, MTA fell to top seeded YULA while TABC upset #4 Yavneh. Sunday saw yet another Frisch upset, as the Cougars used a 13-1 run in the second half to upend #3 HAFTR to knock off their second Top 3 seed in the tournament. In order to win the entire thing, they’d need to complete the hat trick though, as top-seed YULA knocked off TABC behind 22 points from Daniel Tzion, filling in for injured YULA star Ariel Sokol. In the finals, Frisch held tough behind 18 points from Justin Hod, but could not overcome an 8-0 YULA run to start the 4^th quarter which began tied at 26, as the Panthers won their 8^th Sarachek Tournament Championship 45-35. Sokol returned to action, scoring 14 in the victory. Jojo Himmelman, named the tournament MVP added 8 points and 10 rebounds for YULA. Other winners on the day, Ida Crown took the Tier II championship, 18^th seeded Atlanta exceeded expectations winning the Tier III Crown and Hyman Brand was victorious in the Tier 4 championship.

For more in depth coverage of the Sarachek tournament, listen to tonight’s Season finale, a special Sarachek edition of the Court Report on the Nachum Segal Network at 7pm, nachumsegal.com, where we will recap all the weekend’s action as well as sit down with a name familiar to faithful JM in the AM Sports Update fans everywhere, Isaac Benishai, who covered the tournament for Macslive, and had the opportunity to interview our very own Nachum Segal.

Finally, I’d like to wish a mazal tov to the Yeshiva Har Torah Hat Trix on their MYJHHL Hockey Championship last Thursday night. A year after Har Torah had lost in the finals in a heartbreaking overtime game,  they defeated the HANC Cavaliers 3-2 in a hard fought and emotional contest and I could not have been any more proud of their efforts. Congratulations to my Co-coach Rabbi Tuvia Fried and to Rabbi Menchel and the entire Har Torah family.

With the winter sports having drawn to a close, it means the end to another fantastic run here on the JM in the AM Sports Update. I’d like to thank Nachum for having me and to you for tuning in each week at around 7:20 to listen to the latest in Yeshiva League Sports. To all of this year’s champions, congratulations and get ready to defend those crowns because next season is right around the corner.

This has been the Tuesday Morning JM in the AM Sports Update, I’m Elliot Weiselberg, see you next year!