Double duty: Atwater opens ABC Tournament with two games on same day

A late cancellation forced Buhach Colony boys basketball coach John Bliss and Atwater coach Jason Boesch to scramble this week to come up with a format for a seven-team tournament.

As a result, the Atwater-Buhach Colony (ABC) Tournament will have two different pools as it gets under way tonight at both high schools.

The Atwater side of the bracket will be a three-team, round-robin pool with the Falcons (2-4) playing two games today – against Livingston (2-3) at 3:30 p.m. and Elliot Christian (4-1) at 8 p.m. Livingston will play Elliot Christian on Friday at 6 p.m.

“It’s tough; it kind of goes back to summer league,” Boesch said. “In summer tournaments, you play two games in one day. We’re going to have to do a good job subbing and getting guys some rest. That’s going to be important.”

The Buhach Colony side of the bracket will be a four-team bracket-style pool. It’s basically a double-elimination tournament because only the top three teams from the Buhach pool will be matched up with the three teams from the Atwater pool Saturday.

“We had to find a way to accommodate the teams coming,” Boesch said. “That meant us and Buhach Colony biting the bullet. We’d rather make things uncomfortable for us.”

Bliss had been in contact with a team from Australia that agreed to participate in the tournament. It wasn’t until last week that the team informed Bliss it was scheduled in another tournament at the same time.

Bliss and Boesch searched for a replacement but couldn’t find one on short notice.

“I’ve been doing tournaments for 25 years,” Bliss said. “I’ve never had a seven-team tournament. I talked to a lot of people to try to figure it out. It took a long time to come up with something. It was a headache, but we figured out what to do.”

The Thunder (0-5) will play Mariposa (4-1) tonight at 8 in the first round. The first game at Buhach Colony will feature defending tournament champion Roosevelt (2-0) against Escalon (1-1) at 6:30 p.m.

“Roosevelt is probably the favorite,” Bliss said. “They have a lot of their guys back. Mariposa is good too. They have most of their guys back.”

The Thunder is looking to turn things around after a rough start, including an 0-4 performance at last week’s Modesto City Classic. Buhach Colony has been bit by the injury bug with five players sitting out Wednesday against Kimball.

“We’ve had a couple good practices this week,” Bliss said. “I have a lot of good kids. They’re working hard. I think we can turn it around. It’s tough, but we have to find a way to get it done.”

This story was originally published December 10, 2014 at 10:12 PM with the headline "Double duty: Atwater opens ABC Tournament with two games on same day."