On December 7th the Rocklin Boys Basketball team hosted and won the Tip-Off Tournament in which many teams from around the area and world participated. A total of 16 teams played in the Tip-Off Tournament, one of which was from Australia. Rocklin’s first game was against the Freedom Falcons where Rocklin had a dominant performance winning 80-66. Rocklin’s next opponent after advancing was the Merced Bears again Rocklin won and ended with a commanding lead of 64-39. Rocklin then advanced to the championship game where they took on the Antelope Titans, the game was back and forth and the team had to rally together to win in a close victory 58-53. allowing Rocklin to win the tournament back-to-back years.
A notable player is Mark Lavrenov, who was crowned tournament MVP this year. Mark had an incredible season last year and recently committed to Sac State to continue his Basketball career. When asking Lavrenov his highlight of the tournament he said, “Just winning with my guys. You know, we overcame adversity, especially this [Antelope] game. You know, the first two games weren’t as hard as this game. We played a great Antelope team, and they were well coached. They played really hard but we played a little bit harder and we got the dub.” The team looks forward to the rest of their season as it just began, their next game being the Foothill Mustangs at home on Dec. 10th.
