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Mostly Cloudy Lynbrook basketball team shot for the stars
Michael Franklin has been coaching basketball for 20 years, and never had an undefeated season — until now. This fall, the 7th grade boy’s basketball team of Lynbrook Middle School had that legendary 10 to 0 run.
“It’s not something I ever thought would really happen,” Franklin said. “And then this group was just so great and cohesive. They really worked hard for this goal.”
Around game four, Franklin knew something special was happening. But he, and the entire team, focused on taking it one game at a time. They understood their ultimate goal, but never said the “U” word out loud.
Despite the pressure of that goal that mounted with each passing game, the team remained collected and focused.
“We were just so confident because we worked so hard on our plays, and prepared so much for the season,” Franklin said. “These kids worked so hard and they communicated and they did everything that any coach would expect from a team.”
Their final game was against Oceanside, one of their toughest competitors. Middle school sports can be difficult because they’re done by location, rather than the high schools’ system of size, Franklin noted. Plus, some of the Oceanside players were physically larger than the Lynbrook kids. Ultimately, Lynbrook played a better game, and that was reflected on the scoreboard.
“Everybody on our team was just going crazy,” Adam Abir, a player on the 7th grade team, said. “Really excited and happy that we finished our season 10 to 0, and all the hard work paid off.”
“I as a coach, I’m a little old school,” Franklin said. “I don’t like to show emotion. I want them to never get too high or too low. But when we reached our ultimate goal, I went right in that huddle, even jumping up and down with them.
“It was just one of the great moments of my coaching career.”
The celebration was about more than that final win — it was about all the hard work throughout the season that got them there. It’s the fact the team is so great, Abir said, that made it fun.
“Watching them throughout the season just improve,” Franklin said. “I think they are proud of how much better they’re getting, and they just love the game so much.”
“They are a deep, deep team,” Gil Abir, Adam’s father, said. “Whether you’re starting five, back five, middle five, they were all relentless.”
This is likely to be the first of many championships for these boys, Franklin mentioned. He and Abir hinted that the future of basketball in Lynbrook — especially at the high school Varsity level — is looking bright.
“They will definitely make trouble for a lot of elite teams that are in this division,” Abir said.
“I’m just so excited that I get to watch them play for the next six years,” Franklin, also a math teacher at Lynbrook High School, said. “That’s what’s special, is that I get to watch them grow. I’ll have them in my class in high school, and continue this bond that we started here with this undefeated season.”
“I think they have the drive,” he added, “to just keep competing, and keep winning.”
