MONTVALE, NJ: Team Banner Wins…A Team Banner

They were the only squad to beat the Ferrall Ballerz during the regular season. When it mattered most, they beat them again. Congratulations to your newest Montvale Ultimate Hoops champions, Team Banner.

Rewind to the Semifinals last Wednesday. According to Ferrall, his Ballerz had zero chance to even make it to the title game. Players were injured, deathly ill and incarcerated. He expressed zero confidence in his guys while talking to Bad Boy Moe (don’t call me Williams) Abrams.



As it turned out, the Ballerz disposed of the Boyz. Ironically, the short-handed team in the game wound up being the Bad Boyz, after Gurbir Grewal went down with a scary injury minutes into the second half. Get well soon, buddy!

In the following Semifinal game, Team Banner ran away from the Flint Troopers, who saw their season come to an end after barely cracking the 40-point mark. While the resulting Ballerz-Banner title game was expected to be a nail-biter, it wound up looking more like Week One, when Team Banner won by double-digits.

Like the Semis, the Ballerz weren’t at full strength for their title fight. This time, though, it just seemed like it wasn’t in the cards for these guys. The kids jumped out to a double-digit lead and never gave it up.

If you said before the game that Ryan Matthews would shoot over 60% and score nearly half his team’s points, and Bronstein and Bigos would do their usual damage, you’d say the Ballerz were toast. You’d be right.

In the first half, the Ballerz missed a few chippies and gave up too many easy ones on defense. While they got to within four in the second half, a foul on a Matthews three-point attempt and an ensuing Scott Ferrall technical marked the beginning of the end.

While Team Banner might not be returning anytime soon, perhaps it’s fitting that we have yet another new UH champ and will go yet another season without a back-to-back winner. What that means is that, once again, it’s anyone’s for the taking.

See you in the fall!