This year’s PSAL handball bragging rights belong to Midwood High School.
Not only does it boast the school championship team, but the best junior singles player in the country in Tyree Bastidas, plus the finest doubles team of James Liu and Brendan Yuen, who helped bring home the honors from the 2008 NYC Boys Handball Tournament – complete with majestic marble-based trophies – to their proud school, 2939 Bedford Avenue.
Tyree, 17, a senior with the Midwood Hornets and a world-ranked handball player, emerged champion with his “untouchable serves, flat rollout kills coupled with his great sportsmanship,” adding the PSAL 2008 NYC Boys Individual title to his ribbon of sports plaudits.
James and Brendan, both 16, slammed their way to the 2008 NYC Doubles Individual Championship the old-fashioned way, by trouncing the competition with hard-hitting handball after winning their team city title.
“I’m so proud of the dedication that they put forth from the beginning to the end of the season,” gushed Coach Jennifer Rogers of her athletes, who trumped 103 players in the two-day tourney, held at Lafayette High School, 2360 Benson Avenue, and Grand Street Campus, 850 Grand Street.
Handball – also known as team handball, field handball, European handball, or Olympic handball – is a team sport where two teams of six players and a goalie, who pass and bounce a ball in an attempt to toss it in the opposing team’s goal.
It has been played internationally since the 1920s.
