Golden Gate League Underway

It’s been great seeing our teams compete in the Golden Gate League as we’ve opened the season with some strong performances and thrilling finishes! Special shoutout to 5th Grade Hitters who have opened the season 4-0! This upcoming weekend marks the final Saturday of regular season competition before the playoff weekend on October 5th-6th. We’re looking to secure top seeds to set us up for the best positioning in the playoffs, let’s make sure we finish the regular season strong!

All-Tournament Honors at Grassroots!

We stepped up the level of competition during our bye week of the Golden Gate League as a majority of our Black Club programs competed at the Grassroots 365 King of the Town event on September 14-15. This gave our athletes an extra opportunity to compete against some of the top programs and athletes throughout the state. We wanted to take a moment to congratulate our Team Esface athletes who Grassroots 365 chose to their All-Tournament teams!

Ethan Valdez (4th Grade)

Jayden Bell (6th Grade Bronze)

Ethan Tom (7th Grade Circuit/Gold)

Jack Spivey (8th Grade Silver)

Ezra Farber-Drabkin (8th Grade Bronze)

Mahir Passi (9th Grade Silver)

Third Grade wins Got Game Tournament

Our 3rd Grade Black team took the bye weekend to compete locally at the Got Game Tournament at Carlmont High School and left as tournament champions! We’re proud to see our young group of hoopers start the season strong as they continue to build the fundamentals of ball movement and man-to-man defense. Congratulations to the team!

National Tournament Update: Anaheim for MLK Day Weekend

We wanted to keep everyone in the loop and pass along an IMPORTANT update regarding our national tournament. While historically we have saved the last weekend of the season for our national tournament, this season we wanted to make sure all of our families were in the Bay Area during All-Star weekend as we understand it takes place at Chase Center in February. As a result, we mentioned the possibility of a Vegas tournament during MLK Day Weekend, however, we’ve decided to pivot to the G365 MLK Classic at OGP Anaheim during January 18-20. Based on last year’s brackets, we found this tournament to have more versatility in the amount of divisions and variety of states represented throughout the West Coast. This should also require less documentation from families, as we’ve already had a majority of our teams certified for G365 events. Please save that weekend for Anaheim and we’ll be sending more information in the upcoming months!

Register for Black Club Vitamins and Open Gym

We want to make sure all of our athletes are taking advantage of our Black Club Vitamins program to take their game to the next level! Register for our sessions on Tuesday from 4-5pm or Friday from 6-7pm, both at SportsHouse. These one-hour sessions allow us to focus on skill work including ball handling, finishing, and shooting to allow our athletes to feel more confident on the court. You can view a sneak peak of our sessions here. We’ve already seen some of our regular participants take major strides this season and this is the best opportunity to separate yourself from the competition and prepare for the weekend. All Black Club Vitamins participants on Friday also receive FREE admission into our Black Club Open Gym that takes place immediately afterwards. Don’t miss out on an additional opportunity to work on your game!

For those looking to get some extra run during Friday night, register for our Black Club Open Gyms that take place at SportsHouse from 7-8pm. These one-hour sessions are free for anyone who attends Friday Vitamins or $15 for anyone only looking to participate in Open Gym.

Basketball 101: Increase Parent’s Hoop Understanding

For this week’s segment we want to talk about building an athlete’s confidence and ability to impact an overall game.

Too often athletes correlate their on-court success to making and missing shots. While this is a big part of basketball, we all also recognize that this is a game that requires far more than just scoring. With our coaching, we want our athletes to focus on all the other aspects that go into a game and to understand that makes and misses don’t define a performance. If an athlete is consistently working on their game outside of practice, we always encourage them to trust their work and let it fly on game-day. If their shot is feeling off, that just means to get back in the gym and continue to work. But whether the shots are falling or not, there’s always a other ways to impact the game: Rebounding, defense, passing, etc.

We encourage everyone to watch and show their athlete this quick clip above!

Alumni Spotlight: Harrison Carrington

It was awesome seeing hard work pay off last week as Team Esface alumni Harrison Carrington was granted a full-ride Division I scholarship to play at Colorado this season! Harrison had been on the team for two seasons as a walk-on, participating as a redshirt his first year before appearing in 14 games last season. After two years on the roster, Colorado head coach Tad Boyle awarded Harrison his scholarship in front of his teammates during offseason workouts. Check out the clip above!

Harrison grew up playing in our Black Club program before going on to play his high school ball at Sacred Heart Prep. As a senior at SHP in 2021, Harrison was named the West Bay Athletic League MVP after averaging 20.2 points, 8.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 2.2 blocks, and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 53% from the field. Following graduation, Harrison played at Northfield Mount Herman, a prep school in Massachusetts, where he led the Hoggers to a second-place finish in the New England Prep School Athletic Council Class AAA Division. His standout performance included a 40-point, 18-rebound game during league play.

He went on to join the Colorado roster where he worked his way onto the team and has now earned a full-ride scholarship. We’re excited to see Harrison continue to reach new heights!

Coming Up…

We’ll conclude the Golden Gate League regular season this weekend before participating in the playoffs during the October 5th-6th weekend. Be sure to check TeamSnap for your schedule and please mark your availability on TeamSnap so we know our roster for the weekend.

You can also view our Black Club weekend schedule for the remainder of the season below. Click the link for all weekend information throughout the season!