The Spring AAU Basketball season kicked off this weekend with the Brewster Tip-Off Challenge Tournament hosted by the Westchester Hawks. The locally based Long Island Lightning Rothman squad went undefeated and claimed the 14U (8th grade) Division Championship Trophy.

The team is in its third full season of competing together. It is composed of players from all over Long Island, but has a strong local contingent with Roslyn residents Michael Lefcort, Ben Rothman and Andrew Wolfe as core members of the squad.

The Roslyn players have been teammates on Island Garden Superleague and Long Island Lightning AAU teams since the third grade. The team is coached by David Rothman (Roslyn), Paul Valenti (Port Washington) and Peter Sullivan (Plainview).

With five skilled players at or over 6' tall, and tremendous speed and toughness on the outside, the team's impressive AAU totals include five first place titles and five second place finishes in 16 tournaments played since 2006.

They make several out of state trips each season and each sojourn is designed to provide a memorable, educational and gastronomical experience for the players. Last year's tour of Fenway Park in Boston capped off by a celebratory team dinner in the North End were recent highlights (not to mention a thrilling one point triple OT victory over the local favorites).

Next up - this coming weekend's Philadelphia Invitational Tournament held on the beautiful campus of Villanova University and hosted by the Keystone Blazers Basketball Club. This tournament draws elite teams from Florida to Canada and is known to be extremely competitive.

The team will travel to Philadelphia on Friday to sample the wares of several famous Cheesesteak landmarks and on Saturday will tour the historic Palestra - "The Cathedral of Basketball" located on the University of Pennsylvania Campus. The team will begin Pool play on Saturday afternoon and is hoping to bring the Championship hardware back home to Long Island.