With 42 competitors (21 teams) and 5 rounds of games, the tournament took some unexpected turns. As the tournament moved on to the finals, games began to become best of three as opposed to the classic single elimination that the rest of the competition followed. Tension rapidly increased as the tournament moved on from Semi-Finals to the Championship game. The stressful final game took around an hour to complete with Senior Avi Lax and Junior Noah Wiener taking first place and Juniors Chaim Lebowitz and Noah Rosenberg claiming the second place title. Special thank you to Avi Lax and Reb Yitz for making this tournament one of the highlights of the February Madness season! Kavi Lax (Senior) Rambam Hosts Epic 4v4 February Madness Tournament! This year’s annual February Madness Basketball Tournament went 4v4 and was intense to say the least! The school was treated to an exhilarating round of back-to-back action. After defeating many hardened and highly skilled matchups, the team led by Varsity starting Point Guard and All-Star Qualifier, Gabe Mosheyev, made it to the top. Gabe Mosheyev (12th), Eli Yunaev (12th), Binyamin Kessler (10th), and Yosef Hirsch (9th) steamrolled many, but went eye-for-eye with Nate Cohen’s (11th) team in the semis. Leading them to play the beast from the other side, Nachman’s team. Nachman Eisenbach, himself more than qualified in basketball outside the tournament, fought their way together with Noach Yovits (11th), Reuven Weiss (10th), and Yaakov Murdakhayev (10th) to the championship. Matching up with Gabe Mosheyev and allstar defender Eli Yunaev, it was tough. With Gabe’s team taking the glory, everyone won with a day that saw sports and sportsmanship at the highest level. Huge shoutout to Reb Yitz, Avrumi, and the Doc for setting up the event with extreme logistical smoothness. And thanks to Ezra Mimun (12th) and Ariel Tilis (12th) for their excellent performances as referees. Avichai Yosipov (Senior) Huge Rambam Win at Citron February Speech Tournament! This Wednesday, Citron hosted its February Speech Tournament, featuring events such as Impromptu, Radio, Extemporaneous Speaking, Original Oratory, and many more. Our guys spent serious time preparing for these competitions, specifically for Radio, where they prepared for two rounds of a five-minute breakdown of local, national, and international news, along with the weather and a commercial. In Extemporaneous Speaking, the students were given a choice out of three prompts within the scope of the U. S. (1st round) and international scopes (2nd round). The students then had 30 minutes to prepare and 7 minutes to recite their well-researched and convincing speech from memory. Prompts for the competition included things such as, “Can a resurgence in local newspapers still happen?” or “What factors are behind the LDP’s success in Japan’s recent snap elections?” Although limited to two events, a few of our guys participated in multiple competitions at once, joining Impromptu with Radio or Extemp. For those who did Impromptu, they had two rounds in which they were given a word (ex. “Ghost-Town”), phrase (ex. “The early bird gets the worm”), or question/ idea (ex. “Too much TV is bad for your eyes”), and had to pick one to prepare and deliver in under 7 minutes. Our competitors really pushed their critical thinking skills in these quick-thinking competitions and managed to emerge victorious! Congratulations to Yosef Harris for winning 1st in Impromptu and 1st in Extemporaneous Speaking, and to Avichai Yosipov for winning 3rd in Radio!