West Coast Trip Ends for Playaz & Rivals

The New England Story's Over in Hollywood

 New England Playaz

- This morning, both the Rivals and the Playaz played 2nd Rd games in the Championship Bracket at the Double Pump Best of Summer Classic in Los Angeles.  The Playaz did not have their best day on the offensive end and dropped a tough one to a swarming and athletic Team Bradley squad by a score of 44-35.  Congragulations to the Playaz on a solid summer showing and stay tuned for recruiting updates on Kaleb Tarczewski, John Papale, Terry Brutus, Joe Bramanti, and the incoming Choate post-grad guard whose name I do not know but will find out.  Also check for news on the Playaz underclassmen: Jared Reuter, Makai Mason, John Powell, Adrian Oliveira, and Cane Broome.

Mass Rivals

- On the neighboring court, the Rivals took down quite a talented squad in D1 Sports out of Raleigh, North Carolina by a score of 74-61.  The Rivals were led by 25 points by Noah Vonleh and 14 points and six dimes from Dimitry Floras.  With the win, the Rivals moved on to the Sweet 16 where this afternoon they went up against a very good Minnesota Pump N' Run club in front of huge crowds on both baselines; on one end were the fans and on the other were college coaches such as Gerry Mac of Syracuse, Jerod Haase of UNC, Joe Dooley from Kansas, and coaches from BC, UCLA, USC, Georgetown, St Johns, Minnesota, WVU, Notre Dame, Texas, UMass, URI, Navy, UNH, Brown, Cal Poly, Marquette, Auburn, Nebraska, Drake, UC Irvine, Wichita St, Stanford, Pepperdine, Princeton, UCSB, Richmond, and Washington State.

The game itself was an absolute war, with MPR possessing a front-line that was quite impressive in going up against the 21.5 ft wing-span of the Rivals front-line.  MPR attacked the basket and the rim relentlessly, seeming to answer each and every dunk by Vonleh and Auguste with a harder dunk of their own.  The game itself was close throughout, with Noah Vonleh, Dimitry Floras, and Steve Haldyna keeping the Rivals in the game by making plays and scoring the ball.  In the end, it was MPR who made more plays down the stretch and the Rivals were eliminated from the tournament by a score of 55-50.  All in all, this summer could not have gone better for the Rivals.  They finish up in LA with a record of 5-1, and finish 8-2 on their West Coast Trip.. For July, they finished with a record of 14-4  with the four losses coming against top-flight teams in CBC, Terry Porter Elite, the Devin Harris Superstars, and Minnesota Pump N' Run.  They also won a Major Championship at the Basketbull HOFNI and most importantly, Vin Pastore got the Rivals players the opportunity to play in front of a ton of college coaches, and at the end of the day, that is what really counts in Live-July.  Stay tuned for recruiting updates on Zach Auguste, Cedric Kuakumensah, Steve Haladyna, Jamie Holder, and Mike Carbone and also come around to follow the 2014 Rivals combination of Dimitry Floras and Noah Vonleh.

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