American Heritage 86 , Oldsmar Christian 69 - Kenny Boynton goes for 42 and 8 in the opener

American Heritage Basketball opened its regular season with the annual Thanksgiving Classic with a home game against Oldsmar Christian School. Over the last 3 years we have started a nice tradition at school for this game - on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, American Heritage School has an early release day and ends at 12:00 noon. Our basketball team played at 12:30 yesterday (for the 3rd straight year) to give the students at Heritage a chance to get into the usually sold-out gym. We played a very good Oldsmar Christian team - in fact, Oldsmar played - and beat - one of the best teams in the state in Berkley Prep the night before. Coming into the game we had an excellent week of practice, and I knew we would play well. To be honest - I was 75% correct with that prediction. We played great basketball for 3 of the 4 quarters. Honestly - we were bad during the 2nd quarter, but good enough during the other 3 to make up for it. Our team is coming together, and we have continued to get better, and, we have Superman on our team. Kenny Boynton finished with 42 points and 8 rebounds and played a great all-round game to lead our squad. Raymond Taylor finished with 8 assists and chipped in 20 points, and our contributions from Juan Ferrales, Everton Chin, Bill Slade, Marcus Blake, Daiquan Walker and Jake Wheeler were terrific.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone - enjoy the turkey and the football.

American Heritage beats Cypress Bay and Cooper City

What a great week! The GoodBasketball.com Tip-Off Classic just concluded after seeing 4 great games. On Wednesday night we saw Cypress Bay and Clewiston open things up with a terrific game that saw many lead changes and many highlight type plays. Cypress Bay ended up winning the game, and the tone was set. In the night cap, American Heritage used a very strong defensive effort to catapult themselves to a 37-11 halftime lead. Heritage ended up winning a good game that saw Cooper City compete until the end. The crowd was good, the energy was great, and it was awesome to finally get the 2008 - 2009 basketball season underway. Night 2 saw Cooper City take on Clewiston in the opening game, and while Cooper City built an early lead, Clewiston fought back to make the game a 2 point affair with a minute to play in the game. Cooper City held on, and won the game by 4. The 2nd game of the night saw American Heritage go at it with a very, very good Cypress Bay team. Cypress Bay came out hot and held a 2 point lead after the 1st quarter, but Heritage roared back to take a 15 point lead at the half with a 38 - 23 lead. The 2nd half was exciting, as Cypress Bay fought hard until the end, but American Heritage prevailed with the 80 - 65 victory.
Thanks to all of the students, parents, fans, and coaches of all 4 teams that came to play at American Heritage this week. Everybody enjoyed themselves, and were witness to some pretty good basketball. I can't wait for the regular season to start - this Wednesday at 12:30 in our gym against a top team in Oldsmar Christian School.

Early Signing Day @ American Heritage

WOW - what a day Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 was. This day saw 6 of our athletes sign division scholarships - 4 in the sport of basketball alone. 

There are a lot of students who participate in high school sports. There are a lot of good athletes, and there are a lot of good students that participate in high school sports. But trust me - on signing day - a lot of these good athletes are sitting at home, and a lot of these good students are sitting at home. It is a true HONOR for student athletes to receive a scholarship to play a sport at any level of college, much less division 1. I am proud of these six student athletes.

Congratulations go out to the following athletes and families:

Kenny Boynton - Florida

Lindy Duncan - Duke (golf)

Sandra Garcia - Wake Forest

Bianca Lutley  - LSU

Raymond Taylor - FAU

T.J. Vogel - USC (golf)

This day is the culmination of years and years of hard work by the athletes, as well as years and years of sacrifice by their families. What a great, great day.

Patriot Madness 2008 -Kimbo Slice comes to American Heritage!

Thanks to all who helped make Patriot Madness 2008 such a success! Last night the boys and girls varsity basketball teams welcomed the crowd as well celebrity guest judges Kimbo Slice, Eric Hosmer, and D.A. from WQAM as we had so much fun. The night was a success for all - the sold out crowd was witness to a great performance by the cheerleaders, a 3 point contest by the varsity girls (which was won by Bianca Lutley and Sandra Garcia), a scrimmage by the varsity boys team, a ceremony to honor our 4 division 1 players (Kenny Boynton to Florida, Raymond Taylor to FAU, Sandra Garcia to Wake Forest, and Bianca Lutley to LSU). We concluded the night with a 3 point contest by the boys (which was won by Juan Ferrales and Remi Barry) and a dunk contest (which saw Remi Barry defeat Kenny Boynton in the finals). After the ceremony the boys team held a meet and greet session with Kimbo Slice.