Thanks Nachum! Well ladies and gents…I was sitting at my desk Monday night and I realized…hmmm….I don’t seem to have a compelling basketball contest that involves two heated divisional rivals with runs, comebacks and late game drama. Then, automatically, out of nowhere, the answer came to me: Why don’t I just wait a day so that I can talk about last night’s contest between Frisch and TABC??? So that’s JUST what I did! So, welcome to the Not so Tuesday morning JM in the AM Sports Update, I’m your host Elliot Weiselberg.

A raucous crowd packed Frisch last night for the only meeting of the regular season in the oldest North Jersey basketball rivalry, between the Cougars and the TABC Storm.  Frisch, a perfect 10-0 on the season looked to put a cap on the Western Conference, needing only a win over TABC who came in at 9-2 to earn the crown. Early on, though, it was the Storm who looked like champions as they came out of the gate hot, erasing a 5-0 Frisch lead, and outscoring them 20-7 for the rest of the quarter behind the hot shooting of Tai Gerszberg, Solo Schulman and Dan Poleyeff. In the second, the tempo of the game slowed, but still stayed in TABC’s favor, with the Storm doubling up Frisch in the quarter to take a 12 point lead into the half. But, on the other side of the break, the Cougars caught fire. Scott Levine drained two huge 3’s to start the third along with Benny Tuchman scoring 7 of his game-high 16 points in the quarter to erase the 12 point deficit, and then drawing back within 1 after TABC went on a 7-0 streak of their own to end the quarter down only 1. In the fourth, Frisch would find another gear as, two and a half minutes in, following an Andrew Langer bucket to bring the Cougars within 1, Tyler Hod hit a floater from the free-throw line to give Frisch their first lead since the 5-minute mark of the 1^stquarter at 38-37. It would be a lead that they would never relinquish. Hod would drain four key free-throws down the stretch to keep the Storm at bay and Frisch would emerge victorious by the score of 46-41, clinching the Western Division crown.

In other varsity basketball action, the mirror of this game, featuring DRS and HAFTR in their return contest went, once again to HAFTR as the Hawks won at home, by an almost exact score, 47-41 to also keep themselves perfect and have now also clinched the Eastern division crown. Could this be a foreshadowing of things to come? It’s a shame that the two top teams in the East and West wont matchup in the regular season as they did in hockey this past Saturday night.

Motzai Shabbos saw East-leading HAFTR make its way out to TABC in a battle of the two remaining undefeated teams in varsity hockey. After a scoreless first, the Storm broke through on goals by Yair Knoller, Alex Malech and Ari Fuchs to give TABC a 3-0 lead into the final period of play. Sam Schechter would cut the deficit to two early in the third for the Hawks, but another three goal run by Aryeh Berman, Knoller with his second and Sam Eisenstadter put the game on ice with TABC skating to a 6-1 win, the Western Division lead, and clearly, the favorites to win the Varsity hockey league this season.

Want to find out more? Tune in to the Court Report this Sunday night at 7PM and the encore presentation next Tuesdaynight at 7PM. We’ll go TABC and Frisch crazy as we go more in depth on last night’s game and we’ll get into the Double-header that the hockey teams will have played on Motzai Shabbos, the results of which could mean disaster for one of the two teams involved. Which team? Tune in to the Court Report on Sunday night at 7pm to find out, only on the Nachum Segal Network.

And that was your late-edition Tuesday morning Sports Update, I’m Elliot Weiselberg, BOO-YAH!