Bailey 3-on-3 tournament sees huge success

The Brandon Bailey 3-on-3 Tournament kicked off early Saturday morning on May 26, and concluded Saturday evening with the championship games held in the Newcastle gym. The sixth annual basketball tournament brought together hundreds of athletes from Graham, Newcastle, Haskell, Throckmorton, Olney, Wichita Falls, Tyler and many other places from around the state. There were nine different divisions featured Saturday-elementary, junior high boys, junior high girls, high school boys, high school girls, college boys, adult men and adult women. A new addition this year was an elite men's division, which featured six competitive men's teams from all over the area and state playing. Proceeds from the tournament went on to support the Brandon Bailey Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship was established to celebrate the memory of 2011 Newcastle High School graduate and salutatorian Brandon Bailey. Bailey passed away following a fireworks accident in 2012 while home from studying at Tarleton State University. Bailey's mother, Gayle, said that the turnout every year gets larger and the amount of money helped raised by the community is something that is hard to put into words. "You can tell by the amount of people who were in the stands, just how much this means to my family," Bailey said. "It's a lot of work and there are so many people who work to put this on every year. To be able to see the people from the surrounding community come out and support is just overwhelming." Since the scholarship has been established, Bailey announced that they have been able to give away $37,500 in local scholarships to area students. It was evident on Saturday that Bailey clearly impacted a lot of people during his life, as evidenced by the number of people who support the tournament through sponsorship or by playing in the tournament. It's truly remarkable to think about how his decision to pick up a basketball all those years ago has helped his memory and legacy live beyond those of his hometown in Newcastle. The championship games got underway at the Newcastle gym beginning at 6 p.m. The gym was packed and full of excitement for two hours. Each winning team and runner up was presented with a special dog tag commemorating the special event and their placing. In the elementary boy's division first place went to Zachary Isaak, Preston Shelton and Brandon Loane. The Haskell Maidens team of Emma Roewe, Delaney Hanson and Melody Martinez took first in the junior high girls division. In the high school boys division, the Steers team of Bryce Bozeman and Evan Ranger of Graham along with Hunter Rich of Sands won first place. Second place went to Newcastle's team of Gage Bozeman, Lane Brice and Colin Daniels. The Boys are Back team of Tre Jones, Markeis Lee, Andrew Marsh and Brady Doss of Electra took first in the college boys division for the second year in a row while the Lebron's Mentors squad of Brent McCorkle, Cody Harvey, JT Weldon and Brady Tackett finished second. The Has Beens team of Preslea Worrell, Rylee Hardin, Haily Clark and Kimberly Flowers won first in the adult women's side of the bracket. The elite men wrapped up the day with the championship game between University of Texas at Tyler's stacked team of Jamal Green-Gaskin of Oklahoma City, Emeka Obukwelu from Plano, Omar Mohamed of Denton and Davis Moore of Martin's Mill took first place. The quartet compete on UTT's men's basketball team. Second place finishers featured Hunter Fincher, Kyle Spitzer, Wade Spitzer and Clayton Brown.