Orlando, FL - Head Women's Basketball Coach, Andrew Morong, helped lead his 10th grade girls AAU team to the AAU D3 National Finals. Coach Morong has been an AAU coach for MBR Basketball for 4 seasons now, and this year the MBR 10th grade girls team qualified for the AAU National Tournament in Orlando, FL.
The team is made up of female-athletes in the 10th grade at surrounding high schools including, Spruce Mountain High School, Boothbay Region High School, Lewiston High School, Oxford Hills High School, Lake Region High School, and Thorton Academy.
Although the team had a very successful run this spring, winning the New England vs. Canada Tournament held at USM, and winning the Zero Gravity Northern New England Championship, the success at the national level was a bit unexpected. The team won all 4 of their pool games, defeating a pair of teams from Florida, one from Alaska, and a team from Tennessee. After advancing from pool as the top team, MBR defeated the Mt. Holly Stars of North Carolina to advance to the final four. In the semifinals they beat a scrappy Basketball Club of Florida team to advance to the National Championship. In the finals, MBR took on BCB of Rhode Island in an All-New England final, falling 51-41 to finish second in the 10th Grade AAU D3 National Tournament.
Coach Morong on the experience, "It was an amazing feeling to be representing Maine and New England on the national stage with this group of young women. They have put in so much time and effort to improve themselves as basketball players this spring, all while being great students and most being multi-sport athletes. They represented our great state with an amount of class and effort that we can all be proud of. Thank you to their parents and MBR Basketball for making this trip a possibility. I know this is an experience none of us will forget."