Black Club Newsletter 5/29/24

We hope everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day weekend! As we look ahead, we have just three tournaments left until the end of our Spring/Summer Black Club season. Let’s make sure we’re prepared to finish the season strong!

Team Esface Dominating the Peninsula

Team Esface has been dominating across the Peninsula during the last two weekends! At the Peninsula Takeover, we took home EIGHT tournament championships with the 3rd Grade Goers, 3rd Grade Hitters, 4th Grade Goers, 4th Grade Hitters, 5th Grade Goers, 6th Grade Goers, 7th Grade Hitters, and 8th Grade Hitters all leaving with hardware.

It didn’t stop there, as we carried the success into the Bulldawgs Pacific Invitational where we left with four championships. Congratulations to the 3rd Grade Hitters, 4th Grade Hitters, 7th Grade Hitters, and 8th Grade Goers on their championships! Excited to keep seeing our teams and athletes continue to develop!

College Prep 17U Qualifies for Adidas 3SSB

Our College Prep 17U program has been on fire this Spring/Summer season and recently finished 8-0 on the Adidas Gold 3SGB circuit! After their success, they’ve been invited to join the top Adidas Select 3SSB tournament for July. This makes Esface the first-ever Peninsula program to make an appearance on one of the three largest shoe circuit tournaments. They’ll be traveling to South Carolina for the next NCAA Live Period during July 12-14 and we’re excited to see them on the big stage!

REGISTER FOR AAU ELITE CAMP

We’re officially less than a month away from kicking-off the camp season! With six weeks available, all of our Black Club athletes automatically qualify for our AAU Elite camp that takes place at the Arrillaga Family Gym (600 Alma Street, Menlo Park). Our first week starts on June 18th and we’re currently offering a Buy One, Get One Camp 15% off using the code HCFAMONLYMAY15. You can find more information and register in the link below, feel free to reach out if you have any questions and we hope to see you there!

Alumni Spotlight: ANNIKA SHah

For this week's alumni spotlight, we wanted to take a look at 2021 Palo Alto High School graduate Annika Shah! Annika was a constant worker and dedicated athlete who grew up in our Black Club playing against the boys all the way through middle school. When she entered her freshman season at Palo Alto High School, she was an instant starter on the varsity team where she averaged 16 points, 5 assistants, 3 rebounds, and 2 steals per game. She led the Vikings to a 17-7 overall record and was named First Team All-League as a freshman. As a sophomore, Annika averaged 29.8 points, 7 assists, and 5 rebounds per game and became the only sophomore and public school athlete ever to make the California All-State team. Palo Alto finished the season with an undefeated league championship and 23-5 overall record on the season and Annika was named the CCS Division I MVP for her efforts. Unfortunately, that was her final high school season, as she missed her junior year while recovering from a torn ACL and was unable to play her senior season due to COVID. Despite all these obstacles, Annika signed to play Division I basketball at Cal Poly as just a 5-foot-3 point guard.

While at Cal Poly, Annika has started every game as a sophomore and junior and led the team in scoring both years. As a junior last season, Annika averaged 11.7 points per game and led the Big West with a 94.0% free throw percentage. She also shot 38.9% from three-point range and averaged a team-best 2.4 assists per game. Annika was named to the Honorable Mention All-Big West team for her achievements last season as the Mustangs finished 17-14 on the year. We're excited to see her end her college career on a high note as a senior this upcoming season!

BASKETBALL 101: INCREASE PARENT’S HOOP UNDERSTANDING

For this week’s Basketball 101 segment, we wanted to emphasize Kobe Bryant’s idea that “Failure doesn’t exist.” We think this is a great clip for all athletes and youth parents to watch as they begin their basketball journey. As Kobe says in the video, “I play to figure things out. I play to learn something.” While we’re all competitors and want to win, we think it’s important that all young athletes see games as an opportunity to grow and develop. Even during his NBA career on the highest stage, Kobe was competing for the sake of improving and learning in the process. We recommend showing this to all of our athletes to help their mindset during games!

Coming Up…

With just a couple weekends left, we want to make sure everyone is prepared to finish the season strong! As a reminder, we’ll be joining the Soldiers South Bay Invitational this upcoming weekend on June 1st-2nd. During the following weekend, the 4th Grade Goers, 6th Grade Goers, 6th Grade Hitters, and 8th Grade Goers will be at the two-day G365 Gold Rush event on June 8th-9th while the 3rd Grade Goers, 3rd Grade Hitters, 4th Grade Hitters, 5th Grade Goers, 5th Grade Hitters, 7th Grade Goers, 7th Grade Hitters, and 8th Grade Hitters will be at the one-day Bay Area Roaddawgs event on June 8th. After that, our academy will be finishing at the A.C.E.S. Coca-Cola Nationals in Southern California to close the Spring/Summer season. We added the Soldiers event this upcoming weekend to make sure we’re fully prepped for our travel tournament so let’s make sure we take full advantage! Be sure to check TeamSnap for your schedule and please mark your availability on TeamSnap so we know our roster for the weekend.

We crave to learn and grow. The best way for us to grow is with your valued feedback. Please use the above link anytime to let us know how things are going (positives and negatives) for the Black Club. There’s an option to get in contact with an HQ member in the link as well. We look forward to hearing from you!