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| SportsSunday, July 22, 2007 11:10 PM CDT |
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Tri-Valley pair to play ‘Down Under’ in hoop tourney
DOWNS — Luke Kaiser has some definite goals for his trip to Gold Coast, Australia. The Tri-Valley High School student wants to touch a kangaroo, hold a koala and learn how to surf. In between, Kaiser hopes to gain some valuable basketball experience in the Down Under Hoops Classic, a tournament sponsored by International Sports Specialists, Inc. (ISSI) of North Logan, Utah. Kaiser and Jacob Lewis, who will be seniors at Tri-Valley, will play on a team coached by former Tri-Valley head coach Tom Hall, who was an assistant with the Vikings last season. The team leaves today and returns home Aug. 3. It is among five from the United States that will compete along with five international squads, playing 10 games plus a tournament. “It’s like a once in a lifetime opportunity,” said the 6-foot-3 Kaiser, a starting forward in the second half of last season. “It’s not something every guy gets to do in high school … to play basketball in another country. “If we lose every game, I won’t care as long as I get better.” Lewis, a 5-11 starting guard at Tri-Valley, is hoping to “make new friends and improve on my game a little bit.” “It should be a lot of fun seeing the whole outback and everything,” Lewis said. “That should be pretty cool.” Players had to be nominated by a coach from his state or be on a pre- or post-season honors list in order to participate. Hall’s team also includes players from Decatur, St. Louis, South Carolina, Indiana and the state of Washington. Each player had to raise $4,000 to cover the cost of the trip. The team will travel from Australia to Hawaii once the Classic concludes, and spend three days in Hawaii before flying home. “It should be a heck of an experience. There’s so much more to it than basketball,” Hall said. “We’ll do a lot of traveling and sightseeing. “We’ll probably only get two or three practices where we bring all the kids together and try to get them semi-organized, but that’s OK. I’m looking forward to it.” Get area high school sports scores and statistics at Varsity Sports. E-mail this story | Print this story | Search archives | RSS Show comments |  Hide comments | Hide comments on all stories |
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Nice wrote on Jul 24, 2007 9:59 AM:
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