Springs youth basketball club fast-breaks into fall season

The Coral Springs Basketball Club tipped off its season a week before Hurricane Irma put a stop to athletics in most of Florida.

The league, which has been around since the late 1970s, has its fall campaign running now through November.

Richie Fraiman, who presides over the club, said there are more than 500 players on 50 teams. Participants range in age from 6 to adult.

“The teams play a 10-game season and then playoffs,” Fraiman said. “We play year-round. We have five seasons — a fall, winter, spring, a late spring for high-school-age players and then a summer league. The league teaches them discipline and hopefully develops their game to better themselves. It teaches them to play within a group.”

Most of the athletes hail from the surrounding communities.

Rafael Banchautegur is a member of the Visual Images team that competes in the High School Division, one of the club’s eight levels of competition.

Banchautegur and his teammates won a tightly contested 34-30 outcome over Chai-Tees LLC in the season-opening contest at the Coral Springs Gymnasium.

“I like that I can play with — Richard Thompson, Chai-Tees LLC center/forward

my friends and have fun,” said Banchautegur, 15, a freshman at Coral Springs High School.

Garrett Torisk, a junior at Coral Springs High School, also plays on the Visual Images squad. Torisk, 16, is a basketball veteran, having spent a decade in the sport and five years in the league.

“It is fun and active,” he said. “I like that it is organized and it is good competition.”

Another junior at Coral Springs High School, and also age 16, is Camron Allen, who is a guard on the ChaiTees LLC team. Allen said he thrives on the competition.

“It keeps you up there. It keeps you going,” Allen said. “There are the bragging rights. We talk about it in school all the time. I like the competition in the league and it gives you the reps.”

Richard Thompson, 14, is a freshman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. He has played in the league for nine years.

“I like the challenge,” said Thompson, a center/forward for Chai-Tees LLC. “It is enough to keep you going, to hustle and try your hardest.”

It’s the experience gained from the competition, and not necessarily winning or losing, that means the most to Orien Giacaman.

The 15-year-old from Parkland is a guard for ChaiTees LLC.

“If you have done your job it doesn’t matter if you win or lose,” said Giacaman, a sophomore at Cardinal Gibbons High School and a three-year club member. “You just hustle and work on your game.”

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