South Shore Crush

This is Crush basketball, 2022 — offering opportunities for area high schoolers to build life and basketball skills, on and off the court. For many this is their first organized summer basketball experience. They will be better for it.

A special thanks to Coach Brandon and Coach DJ on the boys side — and congratulations on your first win! The girls begin play in the South Milwaukee Summer League next week.

Crush is back for 2022! This year, we will be offering high school girls and high school boys teams, open to anyone entering grades 9-12 this fall. Practice starts the week of May 22. We will play in the South Milwaukee Summer League and select tournaments, 20-25 games in all, with a focus on affordability and accessibility. Interested in seeing what makes Crush different? Check out our website, and fill out this form ...
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDl2iquLTtYrDceTe3YnDDH4mm-QayXZvCQcl8RUUKV1Lr2w/viewform?usp=sf_link

South Shore Crush is taking it to the playground this month with games against the South Milwaukee Youth Basketball Club and St. Alphonsus. Coach Avery did a terrific job leading the team in our first two tonight.

Thanks, Coach Tom, for organizing this! Great time, really cool vibe. And thanks, Jenny Reinhold, for the photos.

Friends of Crush: We have up to six extra tickets for Saturday’s Milwaukee Milkmen outing. Just $6, and they include a hot dog, soda, and hat. Interested? Message us on Facebook or email [email protected].

Registration is now open for the Crush Classic, a fun 3-on-3 youth basketball tournament on Sunday, September 5, on the playgrounds of two South Milwaukee elementary schools. We are looking for boys and girls teams in four divisions (5-6, 7-8 and two high school divisions). Cost is just $50, with a three-game minimum.

Details, register and pay here ... https://southshorecrush.com/classic/

Please spread the word, far and wide!

Our season wrapped up on Saturday with a win and a loss — and with so much to build on. We are just getting started with Crush, and are so thankful for all of the families who joined us this year. They laid the foundation.

Excited to have South Milwaukee girls varsity coach Jim Grassl join us tonight, and share some time with the young women of Crush. This is the third time we’ve brought in an area varsity coach to work with the girls, and this will be a staple of our program going forward. The lesson is clear: You learn from many different people throughout your life, and always be open to new ideas and new ways of approaching things. I’m proud of our girls for doing that.

Today, we celebrate Assistant Coach Avery, a South Milwaukee Rocket basketball player who has really stepped up to help Crush. She makes our program, our girls, and me better. Thanks for all you do! You have a bright and successful future in this — and we’ll be rooting for you this season.

A really rewarding weekend, with lots of signs of growth by our small group of determined young women. We played five games, and we won two. We could have won all of them. But this is about much more than wins and losses, and always will be.

Here are some photos from Sunday’s second game — one the girls could have easily given up on after our tough opener. They didn’t. Instead, they showed an incredible amount of mental toughness to step up and execute in a close game.

Well done, girls. We are proud of you.

Thanks, Heather Page, for the photos.

We are in the middle of a five-game weekend in Menasha, one that is made possible by our latest sponsor, Educators Credit Union. Thanks for you support — and the support of all of our sponsors. You are providing opportunities to build life skills for these girls, through basketball. We could not, would not, do this without you. Azteca Restaurant MKE, South Milwaukee Ace Hardware, Savaglia Financial Advisors, Haskin & Karls, and Brooks Communications — we love you all!

Blessed to have South Milwaukee boys basketball coach Lance Marifke and Chase Nowak — one of his former players, a St. Francis standout who became a 1,000-point scorer for Wisconsin Lutheran College — join us for a skills clinic yesterday. It’s important for our girls to hear and see real-life success stories in action, learning from them along the way.

The message: Work hard every day to to get better, and persevere over challenges that will inevitably come your way. Coach Lance and Chase have, and I’m thankful they would share their time, and stories, with us.