Community sports | Impact Elite hits summer stride with Sarasota tournament
BRADENTON -- Lakewood Ranch High School and Bradenton Christian School are now each a few months removed from some of the best boys basketball seasons in program and, really, Manatee County history.
The future outlooks are slightly different for both. Bradenton Christian graduates its entire starting lineup. Lakewood Ranch only had one senior on the roster. This summer, though, some of the key returning contributors will be teammates and they all shared the floor at IMG Academy on Sunday at the Impact Showcase.
Impact Elite, a United States Specialty Sports Association club in Sarasota, is the offseason team for Ranch's Damien Gordon and Jack Kelley, and BCS' Dominick Otteni. Gordon and Kelley, rising juniors, will spend time with both Impact's U17 and U16 teams this summer. Otteni, a rising senior, will play U17 with Cardinal Mooney Catholic High School's Emmanuel Lambright.
Impact Elite's 10th- and 11th-grade teams met in the final game of the 11th-grade Division II championship in Bradenton, with the younger team pulling out an 86-84 win to cap an impressive weekend.
Impact Elite 10th shook off an opening-game loss to IMG Performance Select, which won the Division I tournament, on Friday with back-to-back wins to end pool play Saturday. Three more wins put the 10th-grade team into the championship against its older counterpart and gave head coach Dayne Maasdorp the chance to see all of his talent -- including some seventh graders -- on the floor at once.
Suncoast Travel Ball
The Suncoast Travel Ball Champions Cup, the latest Suncoast Travel Ball Tournament to make a stop in Bradenton this summer, begins Friday with six age groups playing games at Manatee County parks.
The tournament, which concludes with championship games Sunday, has age groups ranging from 8U to 13U, with 8U being split into kid-pitch and machine-pitch divisions.
The 10U field, in particular, is filled with contenders from Bradenton, including Mustangs Elite, BR Havoc and LWR Sharks, plus the Cortez Stone Crabs. The Stone Crabs also are fielding a team in the 11U division, which also includes Bradenton's Team Manatee and the Scrappers from Ellenton. Scrappers Baseball also has a team in 12U.
Registration is still open for the tournament.
Inflatable obstacle course
The Premier Sports Campus is bringing a unique 5K run to the area Saturday with the Insane Inflatable 5K. Registration remains open -- sign up by Friday for $65 or on race day for $75 -- to run the 3.1-mile course littered with inflatable obstacles.
The run is separated into 11 waves, beginning at 8:30 a.m. and finishing with an 11 a.m. start. The run is not timed to place an emphasis on the entertainment value of the obstacles.
David Wilson, Herald sports writer, can be contacted at 941-745-7057 or on Twitter@DBWilson2.
This story was originally published May 16, 2016 at 11:55 PM with the headline "Community sports | Impact Elite hits summer stride with Sarasota tournament ."