MANHHEIM, Germany — The first-ever Amateur Athletic Union basketball teams from Europe likely won’t be the biggest or the best during the under-19 national championships next month in Orlando, Fla. Judging from their performances in Sunday’s games against adult community teams, they’ve got a shot at being the scrappiest.
"We’re small," said Bobby Seaberry, who will coach the Top Gun Elite Europe boys’ and girls’ under-19 teams in Florida. "We’ve got to attack, attack and attack."
Both teen teams did just that against seasoned and noticeably larger opposition on Sunday. The Top Gun girls, led by Baumholder All-Europe selection Elizabeth Styles and Bamberg senior-to-be Racquel Davis, prevailed over Ramstein 62-58. But the 2009 Army-Europe and U.S. Forces Europe champion Mannheim Mustangs proved too much for the Top Gun boys, who fell 77-64.
Top Gun Elite Europe girls 62, Ramstein 58: No one paid more attention to Seaberry’s "attack" mantra than Davis. She pulled down an astonishing 26 rebounds — 19 in the second half as the Top Gunners erased a 31-27 halftime deficit.
"I was a little nervous," said Davis, a 16-rebounds-per-game performer as a junior. "But once the game gets going, you remember what you have to do."
Davis dominated the glass despite absorbing a thorough pounding.
"She’s tough," said the European AAU director, Oscar Williams, the man who arranged the Florida tournament berths. "They were pushing her around a lot, but she hung in there."
Also getting hammered was Styles, a 5-1 speedster whom Williams, who’s coached AAU teams in the States for 18 years, characterized as an "All-American."
Styles, who scored 19 points, shrugged off 40 minutes of hard fouls as though she were in a pillow fight.
"I’m used to it," she said of the contact. "I play against Army men all the time."
Mannheim 77, Top Gun Elite Europe 64: Seaberry wasn’t about to let a defeat at the hands of the best community team in Europe diminish what his male squad accomplished.
"I am so proud of them," he said of his no-quit team. "They scored 64 points on Mannheim. There are a lot of community teams around here which couldn’t score that much on them. I can’t ask for more."
After falling behind 41-24 at halftime, the teens put together a 13-1 third-quarter run that cut the deficit to four points with 4:13 left in the period. Patch’s Julius Johnson-Rich, who finished with 15 points, fueled the outburst by going 4-for-4 from the floor and pulling down three of his six offensive rebounds.
"The run was what I was impressed with," said Top Gun boys’ commissioner James McKee of Ramstein. "They were getting more confident, more relaxed and more poised as they went along."
As expected, the burlier Mannheim team dominated the boards, outrebounding the teens 52-36. Fully half of the Mustangs’ rebounds came on the offensive glass.
"They were getting four shots on one possession," Seaberry said. "We’ve got to do more boxing out."
Dillon Wadsack of Ramstein, who scored 18 points to lead the Top Gunners, liked the self-help aspect of the game.
"This was a lot more challenging," he said when asked to compare Sunday’s foe to his customary opponents. "It makes us play at a level that makes us both better."
