The Washington All-Stars burned bright this past weekend as Washington was represented in five of the seven championship games during the Eastern Athletic Commission All-Star basketball tournament and won four of them.
The Washington 10-year old boys team rolled past Camden to win the crown, while the 11-2-year old boys edged past Gates to nab a tourney title and the 13-15-year boys picked up an EAC championship with a victory on Sunday. The Washington 11-12-year old All-Stars girls downed Williamston to win their division, while the Washington 8-9-year old boys advanced to the title game but fell to Elizabeth City.
“We had teams playing in five of the seven championship games,” said Washington Youth Basketball League President Wilson Edwards. “Overall, we did pretty well.”
Washington hosted three of those divisions and a total of 33 teams between the Bobby Andrews Rec Center, P.S. Jones and Chocowinity Middle School and Edwards said it made for an exciting weekend.
“It went very well,” Edwards said. “The crowd was very good. We had one incident … but overall it was a great tournament. We had a lot of good comments.”
The two-day tournament went smoothly and for that Edwards thanks those that helped make it happen.
“Yolanda Parker and her mom were in charge at the rec and did a great job,” Edwards said. “The Parks and Recreation staff worked really hard and I knew they would do a good job. They had everything under control … I would also like to praise Bobby Andrews for getting us quality officials.
“The Chocowinity staff did a great job and kept everything running smoothly and at P.S. Jones, I would like to thank my wife (Cindy) and all those that worked over there. They all worked very long hours and worked hard.”
The tournament began on Saturday and the championships were awarded on Sunday, which Edwards said was the highlight of the event.
“It was a pleasure to hand out trophies to those kids that I have worked with all season,” Edwards said. “To see the looks on their eyes was pretty special.”