Click here for more information about the boys and girls high school varsity basketball AISA tournaments in Seoul, South Korea, in January 2014

It was an all-Kansai affair as the SOIS Sabers played the Canadian Academy Falcons 
in the championship game of the 2014 Yokohama junior varsity boys basketball tournament, jointly hosted by Yokohama International School and St. Maur International School (the oldest international school in the world, by the way), on Saturday, January 18, 2014. Unfortunately, the Sabers came up short against their friendly rivals from Kobe, losing to CA by the score of 35-28. A stout defense kept SOIS in the game, but a disadvantageous combination of poor shooting and frequent turnovers put the Sabers into too big of a hole from which they could not climb. The Sabers players and coaches were understandably disappointed, but they all enjoyed the learning experience.

In round robin play on the first day of the tourney, Friday, January 13, the Sabers first defeated the Hokkaido International School Huskies, 48-21, and then beat the host Yokohama International School Dragons, 34-25, putting SOIS in the next day's morning semifinals vs. Cougars of St. Maur, with the Sabers winning 39-30. This put the Sabers into the afternoon finals against CA, the two Kansai (west Japan) schools having dispatched all the Kanto (east Japan) schools.

Sabers team members were Rintaro Miyamoto, Kan Sawabe, Daiki Kishi, Tomoya Otsuka-Koh, Keita Morimoto, 
Leslie Hsu, Aki Shigeyama, Leo Roberts, and Taizo Heimer. The Sabers manager was Yuka Kagao. 
The SOIS coaches were Coach Routh and Coach Heimer.

In keeping with the annual 成人の日 Sabers tradition, several Sabers "old boys" (OB) basketball players returned to the site of their former glory to take on the current Sabers varsity team on Monday, January 13, 2014. Every year this game is a fun, friendly, competitive affair that helps connect the old with the new and helps maintain the Sabers spirit.

This year's team of Sabers OB players spanned over 15 graduation years and included Sabers Hall of Famers Makoto, Naoto, Jun, Satoki, Toshi, Toru, Yusuke, and Daniel.

Special thanks to Coach Ray for helping ref the game and to the SSC for running the score table on a school holiday.

The game was a tight one with the varsity Sabers eking out a 57-54 victory that came down to a final (missed) shot. It was great to see that the OBs are still playing and playing strong. By playing the Sabers varsity, the OB team has helped the varsity team in its final preparation for the season-ending AISA tournament, January 23-26, 2014, in Seoul.