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Greenwich Rebounders Ready for Another ‘Challenge’

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The Brunswick School middle school basketball team takes to the court during last year's first-annual Middle School Challenge. (contributed photo)
The Brunswick School middle school basketball team takes to the court during last year’s first-annual Middle School Challenge. (contributed photo)

By Paul Silverfarb
Sentinel Editor

Once again it’s time for middle school students throughout the town of Greenwich to lace up those basketball sneakers, as the Middle School Challenge is about to tip off.

The event, presented by the Greenwich Rebounders Club and with help from the Greenwich Old Timer’s Association, will take place tomorrow from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will pit teams from Western Middle School, Eastern Middle School, Central Middle School, Sacred Heart Greenwich and Brunswick School.

“It’s great that we have a goal here of trying to grow basketball throughout the town and it’s rewarding to see that the schools are coming back from last year and that there is positive feedback from last year,” Greenwich Rebounders Club president Jason Anderson said. “We hope to continue this as an ongoing event, where the younger students get to see both the current high school coaches and the varsity players who are actively involved throughout the day.”

While there will be the same number of teams competing in the tournament from last year, it’s obvious that the interest and excitement over the Middle School Challenge has grown.

Last year during the event, members of the varsity basketball teams at Greenwich High School would volunteer to assistant coach and would get paired up with a school that they graduated from.

“You could hear a bunch of the high school kids saying that they wish they had this when they were in middle school,” Greenwich Rebounders secretary Andrew Yu said. “It was a great event all the way around and we heard a lot of great comments about it.”

An athlete from the Eastern Middle School basketball team goes hard to the basket during last year's Middle School Challenge that was put on by the Greenwich Rebounders Club. (contributed photo)
An athlete from the Eastern Middle School basketball team goes hard to the basket during last year’s Middle School Challenge that was put on by the Greenwich Rebounders Club. (contributed photo)

One of the perks for competing in the event is not just having the Greenwich High School boys’ and girls’ varsity basketball programs give their gymnasium for the event, but also having them join in the festivities that take place throughout the day.

“We think it goes hand-in-hand,” Anderson said. “When we see that varsity players are involved at a youth level, you can see how it’s exciting for the younger players when they come out and see the varsity players at games or outside of the high school. We are trying to support the high school players being involved in a community standpoint and giving the younger kids a chance to see the high school athletes in a different setting and hopefully motivate them to be actively involved. This is a dynamic that Andrew [Yu] and I wanted to see happen.”

And don’t think that this event doesn’t have meaning. Just ask last year’s boys’ champs Brunswick School and the girls’ championship Eastern Middle School.

“We are hoping that everybody is going to have fun and enjoy the event,” Anderson said. “There’s going to be a little bit of competition because all the eighth-grade players, with some sixth- and seventh-graders involved. We’re hoping that this is a nice way to finish off the season, with an event that they can have fun at and have a little competition. There’s a little prize at the end and I know Eastern and Brunswick have proudly displayed their trophies at the schools over the past year.”

The Greenwich Rebounders Club was founded two years ago to support all basketball-related activities in the Town of Greenwich, with the goal to promote parent, school and community involvement.

“This is incredibly rewarding,” Yu said. “The reason we started the Rebounders Club was to promote the sport throughout the town and to give back to the community. To see the middle schoolers having so much fun and to give them just a little bit of experience playing at the high school on the big court there, with all their friends and family watching and cheering them on, is very rewarding.”

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