In the words of Michael M. ‘25, who announced the championship game, “for the first time in 13 years, the Beth Tfiloh Warriors are Weiner Tournament Champions.”
Indeed, for the first time since 2010, the Beth Tfiloh Men’s basketball team won the Weiner Family Tournament, defeating Akiba Yavneh Academy from Dallas 53-38. This was BT’s 7th championship since the tournament began 35 years ago. The team was led by Michael C. ‘24 who had 23 points and won tournament MVP, and Jake S. ‘24 who had 11 points and 9 rebounds and who also received a character coin for good sportsmanship throughout the tournament.
Head coach Ari Braun emphasizes how “this is a long time coming and an amazing feeling” since Braun has been at BT for 13 years and never won the tournament. He praises the players for being “a really special group of players, led by the core of returning seniors who have the Championship DNA in them after they won the MIAA championship last spring.” He mentions how this is the first group of players to win back to back MIAA and Weiner Tournament championships, but also emphasizes the impact of previous players and coaches who have built the foundation of the BT program and prepared us to win this championship
Braun’s main point however was “this [was] a very demanding tournament, with a lot of games played in a very short amount of time. For these players to come into the game at 9PM on Saturday after not getting much sleep and time off for three days, and to be able to adjust the gameplan from the first time we played them on Thursday, after watching minimal film, really won us the game.”
As a member of the team myself, this is what you dream of. When you’re in lower and middle school and you come to the games you wish that will be you one day. And for the 16 players on the team, that was us. Playing in front of 650 fans was amazing but being able to win for them was even better. This is just the beginning of a very long season for the team and I hope we have a lot of success going forward.
For more info on the tournament check out the Bt Sports Insider podcast hosted by Coach Braun and Michael M. ’25:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bt-sports-insider/id1718677990
