Basketball coaches from around central Maine will converge Saturday on the Piscataquis Community Secondary School gymnasium in Guilford for their second annual Coaches vs. Cancer benefit basketball game.
The game, scheduled for a 5 p.m. tipoff, will raise funds for the Aliza Jean Family Cancer Foundation.
That foundation was created in the aftermath of the January 2013 death of 13-year-old Aliza Jean Stutzman of Harmony after an eight-month battle with brain cancer. Aliza was an eighth-grader who was an avid basketball player and fan, and she was on track to attend Dexter Regional High School and play basketball for the Tigers until her diagnosis.
The foundation, which has raised about $50,000 since its inception, was created by Aliza’s parents, Craig and Karen Stutzman, to benefit Maine families coping with cancer. Craig Stutzman works for SAD 4 in Guilford as a speech therapist.
The inaugural Coaches vs. Cancer game was held last year at Penquis Valley High School in Milo and raised funds to benefit Zak Mills of LaGrange — the son of Penquis boys basketball coach Jason Mills — as he successfully battled bone cancer throughout 2015.
About $11,000 was generated from the game and surrounding activities, with about $6,000 raised at the game.
The Aliza Jean Family Cancer Foundation was one of the first groups to donate a sizable check to the Mills family when Zak began his fight against cancer.
83 teams enter Harbor House tourney
More than 80 boys and girls high school and middle school basketball teams will participate this weekend in one of the state’s most popular undergraduate tournaments, the Great Harbor House Shoot-Out.
The event will begin Friday in gyms on Mount Desert Island and in neighboring Trenton and Ellsworth and continue through late Sunday afternoon. The high school girls and boys championship games will be played at 2 and 4 p.m., respectively, at the former Pemetic High School gym in Southwest Harbor.
The junior high championship rounds will be held at Mount Desert Island High School in Bar Harbor beginning at 11:30 a.m. for the girls and 1 p.m. for the boys.
Tournament games also will be held at Trenton Elementary School and Ellsworth Middle School.
Twenty-nine high school boys teams and 27 high school girls teams have entered the annual tournament, which began in 1992 with a field of seven local entries.
Fifteen junior high girls teams and 12 junior high boys teams also are scheduled to participate, bringing the total in the four divisions to 83.
The Shoot-Out is a fundraiser for Harbor House, a nonprofit community service organization serving the communities of Mount Desert Island for the past five decades.
