For the second year in a row, Lituanica’s 17U AAU team qualified for and participated in the AAU national tournament held in Orlando, Florida. More than 200 elite teams competed in this year’s 17U division, including teams from Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. Lituanica strengthened this year’s team with two players from Lithuania, M. Mokevicius and G. Sakalas.

In the first round, Lituanica finished 2nd in its group and qualified to participate in the second round.  With two additional wins, the team advanced to the final rounds comprised of the strongest 32 teams within the tournament.  Unfortunately, Lituanica faced a very physical New York opponent and was unable to advance into the next round. Following the loss to NY, and without the ability to advance further into the winners bracket, Lituanica lost a difficult game in overtime to a West Virginia team, ending the team’s tournament appearance.

Several of Lituanica’s players received a lot of attention during the tournament and were noticed by several college scouts.  Scholarship offers are in the works and those players are planning on continuing to compete at the collegiate level.

Lituanica 17U 2010 Roster:
Danielius Jurgutis, Zygimantas Riauka, Vytautas Prunskis, Kevin Honn, Jason  Suttle, Juozas  Balciunas, Mantas  Mockevicius, Giedrius Sakalas
The team was coached by Stepas Zilys and Lukas Zebrauskas