On Super Bowl Sunday, the Great Neck Wolverines were the only undefeated team remaining in the 23-team fourth grade Super League at Island Garden...until they met Roslyn's JCC Wolverines. In this titanic battle of Wolverines, the JCC squad outplayed and out hustled the strong Great Neck team to earn the 29-25 victory, which improved their record to 6-3.

As usual, it was JCC Wolverines' smothering 1-3-1 defense and fast break offense that set the tempo for the game. The JCC jumped out to an early lead and never trailed thanks to tremendous team defense and the energy and scoring of Sam Gubernikoff and Shaun Aggarwal. The JCC led at half, but at the start of the second half it seemed the Great Neck team had solved the JCC's hallmark 1-3-1 defense and started a nice comeback. The JCC squad switched to a packed in 2-3 zone and gave Great Neck all it could handle. With Daniel Zhu and Jordan Roberts controlling the boards, a strong team defense and clutch foul shooting by Evan Birnbaum the JCC Wolverines were able to hang on for the victory. As usual, it was a team effort. "I'm really proud of them. When Great Neck came back, we could have easily folded, but we really bore down on defense, rebounded aggressively and hit some key foul shots," Coach Howie Busch said.

In the following game on February 9 against the Plainview-Old Bethpage Hawks, the coaches were worried about a letdown. "We thought the kids might be riding high from the win over Great Neck, but that didn't prove to be the case. Our kids came to play," said Coach Jason Schwartz. The coaches' fears were laid to rest when the Wolverines were so aggressive on defense that they held the Hawks scoreless for the entire first half. "I don't think they got off more than 2 or 3 shots the entire half," Schwartz continued, "it really was impressive. So in the second half we fell back into a more relaxed 2-3." Alec Levy turned in a fine all-around performance and Josh Herman, Zachary Busch, Charlie Schwartz and Jake Rentzer were all over the court on defense. Everyone on the team scored in this game that the Wolverines won 33-8.

As usual, Coach Dave Roberts summed it up best. "When you watch this team they work so hard on defense and they hustle so much that you can't help but root for them. They remind me of the 1994 Arkansas team that won the NCAA Tournament with their '40 minutes of hell' defense. We don't like to use the word hell, but when you play the JCC Wolverines you better be ready for 28 minutes of heck."