Every Tuesday morning at 7:20 ET Nachum Segal presents Elliot Weiselberg on JM in the AM to deliver the Yeshiva League Sports (YLS) Update. Tune in for the latest Yeshiva League Sports information, as well as, the occasional update on other sports happenings in the Jewish world. The transcription for this morning’s update is below.
As we get ready to celebrate Chanukah, we gear up for 8 crazy Yeshiva League nights that will lead us to New Years 2025. Straight ahead on your Tuesday Morning JM in the AM Sports Update, bagels across JV Hockey, both Varsity Basketball leagues are almost post-season ready, while JV Basketball’s knockout participants have already punched all tickets. All that and more, coming right up. Good Morning, I’m Elliot Weiselberg.
Starting off with Varsity Hockey where the championship preview wound up being a somewhat one-sided affair. TABC and DRS both came in to Thursday night’s matchup undefeated, looking for the mental advantage heading into the 2025 portion of the season. Scoreless through one, it would only take 3 minutes into the 2nd for the home team Storm to grab the lead on an Aryeh Simon shot from the point. 5 minutes later, TABC on the Powerplay, Aiden Rauzman slammed home the goal that would break the game. The Storm would score two late in the third period to cap the 4-0 TABC win to continue as the only undefeated team in the varsity league. Both teams would be back in action Saturday night in close matchups, as TABC outlasts MTA 3-1, but DRS almost had a scare as HANC took them to overtime before Max Pockriss slammed home the game-winner to keep the Wildcats in first place in the division. In other action, Eytan Fein’s goal in the last minute of the 2nd period was the only tally in Frisch’s 1-0 win over SAR, bringing some intrigue into the race for the 2 seed in the West, and Flatbush continued their run, knocking off North Shore and Rambam in what could be a race for the 2nd seed in the East.
Over in JV, only 4 results on the past week, all of them resulting in shutouts. In the East, DRS locked up the division with two shutouts, a win over MTA on Saturday night and a 4-0 win over YDE last night. The YDE loss, coupled with HAFTR’s 6-0 win over Rambam is only made more interesting by Frisch’s 2-0 victory over TABC last night that puts TABC at the mercy of the Thunder and the Hawks. Tonight, HAFTR will square off with MTA, which will end their regular season, where a win would give the Hawks 11 points, putting pressure on YDE currently at 9 points and TABC at 7 . That’ll be the only game on the coming week and the more interesting matchups will occur after the new year.
In Varsity Basketball, the East playoff race has separated a bit as DRS picked up a 58-52 win over HAFTR and MTA knocked off HANC 75-61 to move both to 7 losses and last night’s Magen David win over HAFTR served to both put the Hawks on the brink of elimination and lock up a playoff spot for the Warriors as well as North Shore who punched their own ticket and jumped into the 2nd seed with a 56-47 win over Flatbush. Despite the loss, Flatbush is a win away from the postseason, and can get that win against HANC on Thursday night. Rambam also faces Waterbury tonight, so by the time next week rolls around, we should be within a hair’s breadth of filling out the remainder of the East spots. Out West, last week we chronicled the logjam for the 5th and 6th seeds. The bunch up only got worse with Ramaz’s loss in overtime to TABC, Frisch’s 5 point loss to Hillel and Heschel’s win over Ohr Yisroel. All three currently sit a game below .500 and will have a bit of time until mid-January when several games happen while everyone else is on break.
Finally, in JV Basketball, Flatbush has locked down the East winning its last two scheduled games over the last week over HANC and Barkai to finish at 9-1 and lock up the East top seed. DRS, HANC and Magen David will all now look to jockey for position behind them in the race for the 2nd bye. All 3 sit at 2 losses, DRS at 7-2, and HANC and Magen David each at 5-2 after the Warriors downed HAFTR 51-41 last night. The Barkai and HAFTR losses wrap up the 6 playoff berth in the East as YDE and North Shore join the aforementioned teams in the postseason with only seeding to figure out. The same holds for the West as Frisch has taken command of the division after trouncing TABC by 25 last night to improve to 7-1 and another win over TABC away from wrapping up the 1 seed. The Cougars did the rest of the division a favor, defeating Heschel and MTA, locking in playoff berths for themselves, TABC, JEC at 6-2, Ramaz at 5-2, Hillel at 6-4 and SAR at 4-3.
And that was your Tuesday Morning JM in the AM Sports Update, I’m Elliot Weiselberg.
