Basketball

Humboldt Wild tournament attracts close to 100 teams

Submitted photos

The local sports community got to enjoy a celebration of youth basketball over the weekend with the annual Humboldt Wild tournament taking place at multiple venues all across the county.

The tournament, which takes place annually on the weekend before Memorial Day, had close to 100 teams compete and featured boys and girls from fourth grade all the way through high school.

And, according to tournament organizers Isaac Gildea and Justin Claus of the Humboldt Wild, it was another huge success.

“It was a great event,” Gildea said. “We had a ton of high school officials help us out and a good mix of local and out-of-town teams.”

The three-day tournament took place from Friday to Sunday at seven different venues from the Bear River Sports Complex to McKinleyville High School.

In addition to several local teams, the tournament also featured teams from as far away as Ukiah, Medford and Redding.

And it gave local fans the chance to check out the local players in a tournament here on the North Coast.

“We’re lucky enough to have a big tournament like this here and not to have to pay big fees and hotel and travel expenses,” Gildea said. “Aunts and uncles and grandparents, who don’t always get to travel to see (these players play), got to see them play.”

Gildea stressed it takes a huge team effort to pull off a tournament this big and expressed his gratitude to the community and everyone who supported it.

“A lot of planning went into it,” he said. “But we got great support from the community to help get it done.”

One rival club in particular stepped up to help out.

“A special thanks to the Beasts program for bringing so many teams and working with us,” he said.

 

Gildea also expressed his gratitude to several local companies who helped support the event, including Danco, Mercer Frazier, Hensel’s Ace Hardware, McCullough Construction, Advanced Security, Sushi Spot and Mickey’s Quality Cars, as well as Janelle Jones, Dan Johnson, Chuck Petrusha, Tammy Hamm, Eric Stark, Leslie Hart, Cindy Clancy Semore, Justin Zabel, Carlos Avelar, Dennis Sousa, Jennifer Kile, Owen Hamm, Kyndle Eisner, Jeriko Gildea, Alyssa Gildea, Cliff Hart and Ella Hart.

1 reply »

  1. Reads like a great success, some good folks involved… the size of the event was mind-blowing…

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