Maccabi Games Detroit
Detroit Nets Medals
In Volleyball
RICHARD PEARL
Staff Writer
D
etroit's girls' and
boys' volleyball
teams brought home
the medals, although not the
coveted golds, in the 1990
Jewish Community Centers
North American Maccabi
Youth Games.
The closest the three
Detroit teams came to the
championship was Detroit
Hakoah, the "A" Division
girls' team, which had to set-
tle for the silver medal after
bowing to their Chicago
counterparts in three
straight games Aug. 24 at
the Maple-Drake JCC.
Detroit's other girls' team,
the "B" Division Bar
Kochba team, swept Wilkes-
Barre, Pa. in three games to
win the bronze medal for
third place.
Detroit's boys' team, its
hopes of meeting Chicago in
the gold-medal round dashed
when team leader Evan Ellis
was injured in the semifinals
against Ottawa, dropped
defending gold medalist
Washington, D.C., 3-0 to win
the boys' bronze.
Chicago's boys, team silver
medalists in the 1988
Chicago Youth Games,
claimed the 1990 gold by
whipping the Canadian
delegation from Ottawa in
three straight games, in-
cluding a 15-0 thrashing in
the opener.
Hakoah needed four games
to put down fellow
Detroiters Bar Kochba, 3-1,
in their semifinal match.
Hakoah had taken a 15-8
victory the first game of the
scheduled five-game match,
but Bar Kochba took the se-
cond in overtime, 16-14, to
tie the match. Hakoah won
Detroit Hakoah's Lisa Skeegan cheers Sarah Patt.
58
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1990
the next two, 15-5 and 15-7,
to gain the gold-medal
round.
In the girls' championship,
the Windy City's two
spikers, Marina Schiller and
Debbie Fingerman — both
about 6 feet tall —
dominated play with ag-
gressive spiking and shot-
blocking. Schiller set the tone
in the first game, serving a
run of seven straight points
en route to Chicago's 15-1
victory.
Hakoah rallied in the se-
cond game before the
Chicagoans escaped, 15-9.
The third and final game
of the match saw Detroit
take an early 4-1 lead before
Schiller rallied Chicago to a
tie. Courtney Kalbfeld put
Hakoah ahead briefly at 5-4,
but Chicago tied it im-
mediately and then ran off 8
unanswered points for a 13-5
lead.
Ken Bertin, Detroit
volleyball co-coach with Sam
Skeegan, admitted the boys'
team's semifinal loss Aug.
23 to Ottawa "broke my
heart," because it killed
Detroit's hopes of meeting
Chicago in the gold medal
round.
Had it come off, it would
have been a classic confron-
tation: powerful Chicago
against a less-experienced
but no-less-dedicated
Detroit, which was the only
team to seriously challenge
the Chicagoans in the
preliminaries.
That test came on Aug. 22
at Bloomfield Hills Middle
School, when the smaller
Detroiters handed Chicago
its only loss, winning the
last game of the
preliminary-round match
20-18 in overtime.
Against Ottawa in the
semifinals, Detroit took a 1-0
lead in games with a 15-9
win. But Ellis, Detroit's
tallest player, top setter and
leading hitter, sprained his
ankle in the contest and
didn't return. Ottawa won
the second game, 15-2, lost
the third by 15-11, then won
the last two by 15-8 and 15-
10 to gain the championship
round against Chicago.
In the third game, Jason
Zaks put Detroit on top for
good, 12-11, and Ben Green-
berg held service to close out
the victory. ❑
Steve Robinson of Detroit goes for a takedown.
Robinson, Moskovitz
Pin Down Medals
RICHARD PEARL
Staff Writer
D
etroit Maccabi Club
wrestlers Steve
Robinson and Avi
Moskovitz made the most of
their only chance to join the
Jewish freestyle wrestling
elite last week.
The two 16-year-old
grapplers, appearing in their
first and only Jewish Com-
munity Centers North
American Maccabi Youth
Games, got their names in
the Youth Games record
books Aug. 23 when they
became Detroit's only
wrestling medalists.
Robinson, from East
Detroit, earned the silver
medal for finishing second at
130 pounds, while
Moskovitz, from Birm-
ingham, earned the bronze
for third place at 165. Both
are at the age-limit for
Youth Games competition.
Freestyle wrestling is used
in international competition
such as the Maccabi Games
but differs considerably from
the folkstyle format of U.S.
high schools and colleges,
giving U.S. wrestlers a new
style to learn in order to
compete.
In the overall competition
at West Bloomfield High
School, the Chicago delega-
tion, which crowned three
champions, won the gold
medal as team champion,
scoring 15 points. The Win-
dy City crew gained points
for also having three
runners-up and one third-
place finisher.
"It was just an outstan-
ding tourney," said Chicago
coach Ron Silverstein, who
also is head wrestling coach
at New Trier High School in
Winnetka. "The officials
here were world-class," he
said, pointing to Eric Kopsch
of Southfield, who was voted
the U.S. national wrestling
official of 1990; Lance
Wagner, wrestling coach at
Brother Rice High School,
and Mike Matlock, coach of
the Missouri state champion
wrestling team. All three
are international wrestling
officials.
Chicago's champion at
130, Alex Neiman, took the
crown by defeating Detroit's
Robinson, 15-6, in the finals.
Neiman won three of his
matches by decisions, two by
falls.
Winning the team silver
medal was Philadelphia
with 8 points for second
place, just two points ahead
of the New Jersey team con-
sisting of the Metrowest,
Southern New Jersey and
Bergen County delegations,
which took the bronze medal
for third place.
In the individual consola-
tion finals, which featured
matches between wrestlers
with two or more defeats,
three Detroiters finished in
second place and two in
third. Earning silvers were
Marc Goldman, age 14, 100
pounds; Michael Swartz, 13,
110; and Matt Liss, 15, 120.
Earning bronzes were Scott
Jacobson, 15, at 110 pounds
and Josh Jacobs, 14, at 120.
All are from West Bloom-
field.
Continued on Page 62