Last weekend, City of Milton Basketball Coach Kris Long took his 12U team to the 10th annual Hoop Dreams basketball tournament in Pensacola. Long's boys fought their way to the championship and only there saw defeat by the Sysa Tigers to receive second place overall.
Long praised his assistant coaches for the team's success. In a Facebook post on the tourney, he said, “My assistant coaches Marcus Williams, Haylen Washington, Jarvis Williams make it so fun and easy they deserve all the credit. They are 21 years old picking up and dropping kids off for practice and games, helping with fundraiser and listen to me yelling at them about what they forget to do. These are some great young men. Thank you guys for all the help. When I was your age I never thought about giving back or helping kids.”
Washington said the team played great all weekend long with Kameryn Hall giving his best performance of the summer. Long noted Hall scored over 30 points including six 3-pointers in the first game. “But ,” Washington said, “in the championship game, we just ran into a really good team with fresh legs and we were out of gas.”
Williams attributed success to team cohesion. “You can tell there is a good team chemistry just by the way they played,” he said.
Long also has an 11U summer league team playing in tournaments as well. The team placed second in the Summer Madness Shootout July 24, and then second place in the Summer Madness Showdown at the Malcome R. Yonge Civic Center of Pensacola. As of press time, Long and his team were playing in the End of the Summer Showdown at the University of West Florida, the largest summer basketball tournament along the Gulf Coast, according to tournament organizers.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Milton takes second place in hoops shootout