Johnny Nguyen (’17) and Emily Tran (’17) discussing which courts each team should play in. Photo by Elise Tranby Elise Tran, Staff Writer & Photographer
Fountain Valley High School’s American Heart Association (AHA) club hosted their first semiannual Hoops for Heart tournament of the year on Saturday Oct. 8 at Masuda Middle School.
This tournament has been going on for over eight years and their goal was just to raise as much money as possible while having as many people to participate as possible. From the tournament, AHA raised $530 which will go to research for cardiovascular diseases. Over 100 players participated with students coming from Fountain Valley High School, La Quinta High School, Oceanview High School, Segerstrom High School and Pacifica High School.
The admission fee was $5 for each player and the teams consisted of a minimum of five players with the optional addition of two alternate players. The tournament was split into two separate brackets with nine teams on the first bracket and eight teams on the second bracket.
In the end, Team Bomb Squad and Team Wonder Weebs won their brackets. The prizes included a $35 In-N-Out Burger gift card for the winning team and a $30 Tastea gift card for the runner-up.
“I think think it’s really stressful planning it out, because there’s always those teams that decide to opt out the last minute. But overall, I love being able to invite basketball players from other high schools or even middle schools and just having them play for it. Because we are raising money for research for heart disease, that makes me really happy,” said Emily Tran (‘17), Co-President of AHA.
Positive reactions came from many people who participated.
“I feel like we should do it more often, because it’s really fun and it’s going to charity so it’s for a really good cause,” said Jay Tran (‘18).
