Bay Area’s Inter-City Basketball Olympics

The day was Saturday, September 22nd, 2007; despite the gloomy weather, the Inter-City Basketball Tournament was attended by Tibetan youths from all over the San Francisco Bay Area. The tournament organized by Regional Tibetan Youth Congress, San Francisco was a hit among the youth as there was a good turnout with 8 teams participating. Most of the supporters spent the whole day cheering for their favorite team at the Ohlone Greenway Park in Northwest Berkeley.

The first game started off between Gilman and Albany with Gilman squarely beating the team from Albany, 28 to 19. Then it was Berkeley versus San Francisco; in this game Berkeley emerged triumphant with the score of 36 to 26. Game 3 was an exciting face off between the teams from El Cerrito and Vacaville. This was a close game for the most part but El Cerrito came out victorious with 40 points to Vacaville’s 35. Game 4 was a decisive win for Oakland against Richmond. The game’s final score was 46 to 24.

Thus, the four winners from the first round advanced onto the Semi-finals. The first game of Semi-finals was Gilman versus Berkeley. In this match Gilman won with 36 points against Berkeley’s 20. The second game was a very close one with Oakland edging out Berkeley with only 2 points. The score was 27 to 25. Before Gilman and Oakland proceeded to the final game; there was a pleasant and short match between the only two ladies teams from Vacaville and Albany. Both teams were impressive but Vacaville came out on top with 12 points to 2 points of Albany’s.

The final showdown between Gilman and Oakland was spectacular as both teams gave their best. It was literally a very close match-up until the very last moment. Although it was a valiant effort by both teams, the victory was to go to Gilman with the margin of only 2 points. The final score stood at 39 to 37. This game was by far the most exciting game, and a great finish to the whole tournament. But the day was not over at the Ohlone Greenway Park, individual players participated in the 3 point shoot out. Many of the participants did very well, but the winner was Tenzin Tsephel of Berkeley.

The Champion of the Basketball tournament, the Gilman team, will be awarded on the night of October 12th, when RTYC SF holds its annual Inter-City Cultural Competition in celebration of the TYC’s Anniversary day.

The past Saturday turned out to be a terrific day (not necessarily in terms of weather) for the friendly yet competitive tournament in the spirit of the Olympics (unfortunately high-jacked by the Beijing Games). We at RTYC SF would like to thank all the players for participating as well as their family and friends for coming out to encourage and support them. We would also like to extend our gratitude to Tibetan Association of Northern California (TANC) for their generous donation and continual support. We recognize that youth participation is essential to our Tibetan cause, which is why we will continue to organize more wonderful events like this in the future. We believe that the youths will come out once again in great numbers to participate as well as to show their support.

Bhod Gyalo
RTYC SF
www.sftyc.org
9/24/2007