Maccabi Games Detroit

Boston's
'88 Champions
trounce
Detroit Girls

RICHARD PEARL

Staff Writer

etroit's girls' basket-
ball team heard the
wake-up call but
never got to smell the coffee
as Boston's defending gold
medal champions trounced
them, 57-8, Monday in open-
ing-round action during the
1990 Jewish Community
Centers North American
Maccabi Youth Games.
The taller, more experi-
enced Bostonians, with two
players returning from the
1988 Chicago Youth Games
championship squad, quick-
ly took the lead in the Oak-
land Community College
gymnasium and never look-
ed back.
In the next court, Los
Angeles, loser to Boston in
'88, was dumping Toronto,
59-13.
To its credit, Detroit,
which had no girls team in

ri)

"We're
inexperienced and
don't have a lot of
height. But we had
a lot of hustle."
— Coach
Steve Weiss

the Chicago Games, remain-
ed scrappy to the end, keep-
ing chins up despite the bad
luck of its opening-game
draw.
"We're inexperienced and
don't have a lot of height,"
said Detroit coach Steve
Weiss, who last coached a
Detroit girls' team in the '86
Toronto Games. "But we had
a lot of hustle. The girls were
out there trying."
Detroit kept plugging
away at its game until final-
ly, with 2:49 left in the last
quarter, Jamie Golding hit a
one-hander from the left side
of the key to put her team on
the scoreboard.

Two other games were be-
ing played simultaneously
at the Farmington Hills
campus, but the cheers that
marked the end of the
drought seemed to come
from everywhere in the gym.
Golding quickly followed
that basket with a second
field goal. Teammate
Deborah Hotick hit her only
two-pointer with 1:13 left
before Golding nailed her
third and final goal from the
same left-side spot on the
floor.
Boston's backcourt steals
and a tight defense that kept
Detroit from getting near
the basket pushed the
visitors to a commanding
25-0 lead at the end of the
first quarter. The score was
41-0 at the half and 51-0
entering the final period.
It was in the fourth period
that Boston coach Judi
Seldin, who also coached the
gold-medal winners in 1988,
went heavily to a ball.
control, stalling offense and
benched some of her
starters.
"We had only one practice.
Most of our kids were away
at camp this summer," said
Seldin. She described her
team as speedy but said it
never got to use its run-and-
shoot style of play against
Detroit.
She said Sarah Marks and
Sara Tresch played on the
1988 Chicago Games cham-
pions. However, scoring
honors against Detroit went
to Leigh Glassman with 13
points and Rachel. Sky with
12. 0

Boston . . . 25 16 10 6-57

Detroit . . . 0 0 0 8 — 8

Leading scorers: Boston — Leigh
Glassman, 13; Rachel Sky, 12.
Detroit --- Jamie Golding, 6;
Deborah Hotick, 2.

Detroit basketball coach
Howard Golding gets
down to serious
business.

etroit._cogors
omp In Opening

Round

STEVE WHITELEY

Special to The Jewish News

A

bigger, stronger and
much better prepared
Detroit boys' basket-
ball team opened the first
round of the Maccabi Youth
Games tournament Aug. 20
with an easy 91-53 victory
over Baltimore at a middle
school in West Bloomfield,
Mich.
Detroit came out pressing,
putting pressure on the
Baltimore team from the
jump. The tight defense
combined with solid run-
and-gun offense allowed
Detroit to run off 10 points
before Baltimore broke the
ice, and 20 points before
Baltimore's Karl Sherman
scored the visitor's second
basket.
"Offensively, we played
great," Detroit assistant
coach Barry Bershad said
after the game. "Defensively,
we left a lot to be desired."
After another Baltimore
basket, Detroit's Harley
Marks extended his team's
lead with a jumper from
eight feet. Two minutes
later, teammate Scott Zack,
Detroit's top scorer with 24
points, put in a bucket and
hit a foul shot for the three
point play, giving Detroit a

27-7 lead. The quarter ended
with Detroit leading, 33-12.
Detroit kept up the
pressure through the second
quarter, and held a
dominating 54-27 lead at the
half.
"We spent 4 1/2 months
practicing," Bershad said.
"It was nice seeing it all
come together."
Detroit's Zack led all
scorers at the half with 17
points, and Michael Laker
added eight.
For Baltimore, Jack
Beniashvili scored 10 in the
first half, and Sherman
dropped in seven.
Detroit continued to set
the pace in the second half,
though Baltimore's Sher-
man scored the first points of
the third quarter with a
three-pointer.
Zack then threw in a layup
off a fast break and added a
shot off an offensive re-
bound, and Marks tossed in
a shorty off the glass to give
Detroit a 60-30 lead. As a
team, Detroit outscored
Baltimore 22-14 in the third
quarter, taking a 76-41 lead
into the final period.
Bershad substituted freely
in the fourth quarter, allow-
ing his bench players to get
some experience. "[David]
Belenson played great off
the bench," the coach said.
"We got everybody into the

game, and everybody scored.
"It was a good tune up,"
Bershad said. "The competi-
tion will get harder as the
tournament goes on."
Noting the one-sided out-
come, Bershad said his team
has only come together re-
cently. "The last two or
three weeks we've started to
play well," he said.
Gordon Kaplan, coach of
the Baltimore team, refused
to comment after his team's
loss.
All 12 Detroit players con-
tributed points to the win.
The totals were Scott Zack,
24; Harley Marks, 10;
Michael Laker, 10; Jeffrey
Rosenberg, 10; David Belen-
son, 10; Sarny Averbuch, 9;
Mark Herman, 6; Seth Hof-
fman, 5; Ray Melton, 4;
Aaron Gitler, 2; Brian Win-
shall, 1; and Ryan Fried, 1.
Bershad also singled out
Rosenberg as the team's
leader on the floor, crediting
him with calling the plays
and making things happen.
For Baltimore, Keith
Zakheim scored 13; Jack
Beniashvili, 13; Karl Sher-
man, 10; Stan Tsimmerman,
4; Ryan Snyder, 3; Ira
Friedman, 3; Victor Rich-
mond, 2; Joe Chikvashvili, 2;
and David Lowenstein, 2.
Steven Katz and Craig
Hoffman were the other two
Baltimore players. ❑

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

21

