By Kellie Case
This past Saturday wrapped up week two of Adrian Project Prom's Double Whammy 3 on 3 Basketball Tourney at the Adrian High School gym. With all the basketball goals lowered, and bleachers pushed in, space was made for fours games to run simultaneously. Spectators sat on risers on the stage but otherwise had the option of sitting in folding chairs around the perimeter of the gym.......at their own risk!
All this fun began Saturday, April 7th at 9am with a total of 21 teams in the high school and 19 & up divisions. That's three more than the year before. Between both weekends, players came from all over: Drexel, Cleveland, Butler, Creighton, Archie, Louisburg, Lee's Summit, Urich, Osceola, Amsterdam, Hume, Appleton City and Harrisonville........and of course Adrian. After rounds of pool play the teams went into a double elimination bracket, guaranteeing each team a minimum of six games. At the end of a hard day of play, it was a group of women from the Drexel area called the Lady Cats that took first place in the women's division: Adrianne Lane, Casey White, Amy Music, Mallori Russell, and Annora Smith. Adrianne's husband, Alan Lane and his group won the the mens division that included Josh White, Matt Kleinmann, and Blake Seba. It was the Fighting Frogs, composed of Brian Fregeau, Taylor Ayres, Zach Crumpley (all students from Midway) that captured the win in the high school boys division.
The excitement continued the following week when it was unclear whether there would be a second half of the tournament or not. And then the registration more than doubled in less than 48 hours to 19 teams! T-shirts, designed by Michael Schlotman, were ordered at the last second and delivered on time by screen printers Mike and Amy Hinkle of Gamibo Graphics in Cleveland, Mo. The first game of the day started at 1:20pm and ended in the 8 o'clock hour. The winners of the 5th-6th grade divisions, boys and girls, were all from Butler. The girls creatively called themselves the Natural Disasters: Hally Dolbow, Beth Davis, and Sierra Reynolds. The Lasers took first on the boys side: Cody Gabriel, Stephen Foote, Eli Brockman, and Jake Melton. But it was grandpa, Randy Kershner, that gets the credit for naming the team! In the junior high division it was Mallory Moles and two of her friends from Osceola, Breanna Wood, and Ally Burrow that went undefeated! Hayden Derry, Zach Burch, Zeph Smith, and Kaleb Kauffman, otherwise known as the Thunder, took home the proverbial gold, or in this case the $80 registration fee.
The committee set a few goals in the beginning: 1.) to provide a fun and entertaining activity in a small town where there sometimes isn’t much going on for kids to do. 2.) to deliver a quality tournament to players despite the fact we are still in a “growing” phase, making improvements as we go. 3.) and to make some money in the process. Thanks to all the volunteers and team participation we have met our goals and consider the tournament a slam dunk!
