MIDDLETOWN –The Middletown High School boys” basketball program is hitting its stride these days. The girls may not be too far behind.
So says Anthony Bazzano, who started Middletown”s AAU girls” program four years ago. Four years later the once-fledgling program is now filling the pipeline to the high with some real talent.
Bazzano, Middle-town High”s junior varsity girls” coach, helps oversee four AAU teams of fifth-graders, seventh-graders, eighth-graders and junior varsity players, all known as Middletown ICE.
“The pipeline is full,” Bazzano said. “Our goal is to play as much basketball as we can and play it at the highest level.”
And that”s exactly what the Middletown AAU teams have been doing in their last two tournaments – on May 19-20 at the Darrell Hirashima Classic in South Francisco and more recently, last weekend at the Reno Jam On It tournament in Nevada.
Both the fifth- and eighth-grade teams finished third in Division 2 at Reno, a tournament that featured 972 teams from throughout the United States, 383 of those girls” teams.
The eighth-grade team, which includes seventh- and eighth-grade players, is loaded with size and talent, according to Bazzano. They are 12-5 on the season
“We”ve got some significant size coming up (to the high school),” Bazzano said. “It”s also a really good group of girls and a really good set of families.”
Four years ago, when Bazzano first started the AAU program, he said the girls currently playing on the eighth-grade team struggled mightily.
“We couldn”t get the ball across half court and we lost games by big margins all the time,” Bazzano said. “Now we”re knocking those same teams off.”
Prior to its third-place finish in a 16-team bracket at Reno, the Middletown ICE fifth-grade squad hadn”t lost a game. They dropped one in the tournament, falling to a team from Salt Lake City, but are still 16-1 on the season.
The seventh-grade team went 2-2 at Reno to improve to 9-7 overall.
“It”s a young team that has been playing up against some tough competition all year and they”ve held their own,” Bazzano said.
The JV team lost four games but against some quality opposition, including One Nation of Oakland.
“The JVs struggled a little bit, it was a tough bracket,” Bazzano said. “But we lost to One Nation by only nine points and we had four real tough battles.”
Two weeks earlier in South San Francisco, both the fifth- and eighth-grade teams finished first in their brackets while the seventh-grade squad took second. The JVs went 1-2.
