Warriors' Season off to a Hot Start

6th Grade New Birth Warriors Thanksgiving Shootout Champs

This past weekend, Coach Scott Bradley’s 6^th grade New Birth Warriors squad kicked off their season with a championship at the Thanksgiving Shootout at Kingdom Sports in Franklin, Ohio. The Warriors ran into a buzz saw in their opening game against Team Dose, a Columbus based team, eventually suffering a 67-41 defeat in pool play.  New Birth would go undefeated the rest of the way with 2 wins over Springboro, a 44-42 win over the Team Dose  in the semi-finals and a 44-38 win over  the Dayton Swish in the championship game.

The star of the tournament was Arness Lawson (5’2”/PG/2025/Columbus) who averaged nearly 18 points per game for the tournament, including 21 points in the championship game and 19 points in the semi-finals.  Not only did Lawson put up big numbers offensively, coach Bradley was most impressed with Larson’s defensive efforts.  “I can’t tell you how many steals he had, he just kept ripping people” said Bradley.  Of course we’re not surprised at Lawson’s play as evidenced by the feature we published on him back in October! Bradley also mentioned the solid play of Nino Nesbitt (5'4/PG/2024/Columbus), Juwan Turner (5'5/PG/2024/Columbus) and Maceo Harper (5'6/WF/2024/Columbus).

Lawson, Nesbit & Turner

The rest of the New Birth roster includes: Nathan Isahac (5'6/PF/2024/Columbus), Nathan Erdos (6'6/C/Columbus), Brandon Roddy (5'3/PG/2025/Columbus), Chris Brown (5'6/PF/2024/Columbus), Darius Graves (5'4/SG/2025/Columbus), Mekhi Johnson (5'8/PF/2024/Columbus) and Mykell Murphy (5'8/PF/2025/Columbus). Although Bradley knew his team had talent, his team’s ability to comeback from a devastating loss in the opening game surprised him. “They [his team] proved a lot to me.  To loose like we did to Dose and to come back really pleased me,” continued Bradley.  Now that New Birth already has an early season championship under their belt, they will open regular season play this week.  We intend to keep an eye on Bradley’s team, as they have several Buckeye Prep Elite Showcase alums on the roster.  Congratulations to coach Bradley, his players, staff and parents for the victory.

6th Grade Rebels

We also need to give a shout out to Coach Alphonso Williams and his 6^th grade Rebels Basketball team for taking home a championship of their own last weekend in northeast Ohio.   Leading the way for the Rebels were Ken Giles (2025) and De’Erick Barber (2026).  We’ve not yet got look at either Giles or Barber, but from what we understand, the two can go!

Areness Lawson Article