Newport Lightning under-14 team wins Winter Classic Tournament

The Newport Lightning Basketball Club’s under-14 Black team closed out the highly successful 2015 season by winning the Winter Classic Tournament on Dec. 20 in Lake Forest.

The NLBC was back in action for the first tournament since the end of June as many of its core players were playing football for the undefeated Newport Mesa Seahawks, who recently won the Junior All-American Super Bowl.

The Lightning picked up right where they left off, going undefeated and beating Evolution, SC Tritons and Blue Jackets by an average of 28 points per game. In the championship game, the eighth-graders faced a high school team from Westwood NSNP. The game was a back and forth battle with both teams putting up a great effort both offensively and defensively, but the Lightning prevailed by six.

The NLBC was led by the scoring of Danny Hatch, John Humphreys and Troy Smith, while Cade Overfelt, Ethan Garbers and Jack McKenna played tremendous defense and hit big shot after big shot. Charlie Levis and Justin Lin manned the paint and Levis was a rebounding machine.

The NLBC under-12 Black team was also very successful this weekend playing up in the under-13 division. The team went 3-1, its with only blemish was an overtime loss.

The under-12 Black team was led by the scoring of Ryder Brooks, Sanjay Tewari and Jordan Stucki, while Nic Peloso, Lucas Newton, Brenden Morris and Zach Mullhofer manned the paint and led the team in rebounding. Jack Salmon and Julian Daaboul played tremendous defense all weekend and hit some key shots throughout the tournament.

— Reader submission