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The Lion's Tale

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Prior to their first home game, the players warm up by completing a series of intense drills. On Jan. 12, the girls beat the Spencerville Adventist Academy Lady Hornets by a whopping 17 points, with a final score of 37-20. “When you have your first home game … it can be nerve wracking, having all that pressure on you,” coach Brett Kugler said. “But they really stayed strong the whole way through.”

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Lead by captain Gila Safra, the girls middle school basketball team begins their warm up with a few stretches to get out their nerves. “I am a little bit nervous because it’s our first home game, but I think it’s better that we have a lot of support here to cheer us on,” 7th grader Brielle Bassin said. “So far I think we’ve done pretty well and we’ve definitely gotten a lot better since the first start.”

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Throughout the game, Kugler yells out different plays to the girls, but with a twist. All of the plays that Kugler runs have a special name that relates to Judaism, allowing him to incorporate the values of CESJDS into his coaching. “I think it’s really important that we continue our education, not just in the classroom, but in the court,” Kugler says. “So each of our plays has some sort of a connection to Tanakh, to Judaism, to Israel, so that they have a better understanding of the play because they already have background knowledge on it.”

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Alongside teammate and fellow 8th grader Carrine Shemesh, Lilah Waldman rushes down the court to steal the ball from the other team. Though Waldman feels good about how she played, there are certain areas of her game that need some development. “[I need to work on] my shooting, and my rebounding and getting back faster,” Waldman said.

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Standing on the free throw line, 8th grader Nolyn Ziman dribbles a couple times, then releases the ball... and misses. This was my first game, so it was definitely good, I definitely need to work on my shots but I had a few steals and that was good,” Ziman said. “I think it [the game] went pretty well we definitely have a few things to improve on, but yeah, overall it was pretty good.”

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Throughout the game, the team is sure to communicate about how to fix their mistakes and improve. Whether it’s during halftime, on the bench or on the court, the girls are always giving each other helpful tips. “I think that we [the team] during breaks and timeouts definitely got to communicate and that definitely helps and on the court we were communicating too, which is really good,” Ziman said.

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The student news site of Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School
Photo by Aliza Bellas