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Sports

Labor Day Festival Hoop Heroics

Six Greenbelters, ages 9 to 28, win trophies at special 50th anniversary basketball tournaments.

A team of two Greenbelters—Amanda King, 21, and Douglas White, 28—won a basketball shooting tournament for those over the age of 12 at the Greenbelt Youth Center gym on Sunday afternoon, as part of the Labor Day Festival.

In the under-12 division, four Greenbelt Boys and Girls Club players took all the trophies: The team of Jordan Valentine, 10, and Kadin Smith, 10, stood out for winning two different tournaments on Sunday; the team of Antoine Jacks, 9, and Isaiah Price, 11, won a tournament as well.

Antoine's mother, Isha, was pleasantly surprised to learn from her son that the festival included a basketball tournament. Isha said she and her family come to the festival every year but this is the first time there was a tournament. "I'm very glad," she said. Forewarning Patch during the tournament, she said that Antoine gets his photograph in the paper every year because he is so good at basketball.

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Basketball is in her family. Her husband, also named Antoine, was there as well. He was sitting with Billy Smith and William Valentine, all basketball coaches for the Greenbelt Boys and Girls Club. Isha had to remind him that he wasn't in his coaching role at the tournament as he yelled out tips to their son, but she couldn't resist some cheering as well.

All the parents had learned about the tournament only when they went to the festival and their children saw it on the schedule. The basketball tournament was a special event for the 50th anniversary of the Youth Center.

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Six Greenbelters left the Youth Center with trophies that gleamed almost as much as the faces of the winners, whether age 9 or 28.

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