High School Hometown Holiday Hoops

Gaithersburg MD: Thursday December 27

The local sports hoop scene between Christmas and New Years holidays is reserved for local basketball tournaments.  They proliferate across the region and involve inter-sectional games between privates and public schools as well as games across county lines.  One such hometown hoop tournament is the Montgomery County Invitational held at Quince Orchard High School comprised of teams from Montgomery, Frederick and Baltimore counties.

Watkins Mill’s Tyshawn Akers goes up against Tuscarora’s Geovanni Lawrence for an attempted layup.

This year as has been customary the tournament features both Junior Varsity and Varsity teams.  The two tournaments are named in honor of two former QO assistant coaches.  There is the Jeff Simms Holiday Classic JV Tournament and the David Griffin Montgomery County Invitational Varsity Tournament.  In the JV tournament teams teams from Tuscarora, Watkins Mill, Clarksburg and Quince Orchard competed.  The larger Varsity tournament had the same four high schools compete from above and included teams from Frederick and Owings Mill high schools.  Tuscarora JV won the Jeff Simms Holiday Classic which ended on December 27th. The David Griffin Varsity tournament was just getting underway on the 27th.

Holiday tournaments provide a great opportunity to extend practice across the long divide that results from break in school session till after New Years.  Teams get two games to keep their playing skills sharp mid-break while allowing at least some opportunity for those student athletes and coaches to travel to hometowns outside of the DMV.

The David Griffin tournament will end on December 28th as all six teams will have an opportunity to play another out of county opponent in the crossover matchup daytime game at Quince Orchard.  The regular high school basketball season resumes on January 2, 2019.

Game day photos to follow of early tournament play.

All images copyrighted 2018 © Phil Fabrizio | PhotoLoaf®  for MCM

About Phil Fabrizio

Phil Fabrizio is an event, news and sports photographer in the Washington D.C. Metro area. He lives in North Potomac and has operated Sugarloaf Photography since 1985. He is a member of the Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce and serves on the board of the Glen Echo Partnership for Arts and Culture, Inc in Glen Echo. Stop by Phil's PhotoLoaf site or follow him on Twitter @Photoloaf. Find Phil's blog on MyMCMedia here.

View all posts by Phil Fabrizio