Milwaukee Academy of Science's boys basketball team goes for state title

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MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The March Madness fun isn't all about the college teams. A group of hometown high school basketball players are representing Milwaukee Saturday in the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Boys' Division 4 State Final.

Friday the team beat Cameron in an 86-59 victory and is now just one win away from the state title. The community is coming together help the team cover expenses for their trip to Madison. This is the first time in school history the Novas have gone to state to compete. "They are an amazing group of young men," said Curt Hansen, School Athletic Director.

Hansen says he's proud of how far the team has come. "All the games they've played in their middle school careers and leading up to where we are now, they've probably played scores more games than most people have in their careers," he said.

The trip to Madison to compete for the state title is expensive and the team needed help recouping the costs so they started a GoFundMe page to garner community support. Hansen says because of COVID, the team missed out on raising the needed revenue and is trying to cover the costs that the WIAA doesn't cover.

The fundraising goal is $6,000 and the team is more than halfway there thanks to the community support rolling in minute by minute. "It's a beautiful thing to see the same people a lot of times who were our competition throughout the year are now behind us. no longer competition, now we're a community," said Reggie Bell, Novas Coach.

The players say they are overjoyed by the support. "To have the city behind our backs supporting us feels good to know we have that kind of support in our hometown," said Elijah Thornton, Sophomore. Jamarion Batemon, a freshman player on the team says it feels good to know people care and want to help them out.

The Novas will face off with Roncalli High School Saturday at 12:45pm at the Kohl Center in Madison.
If you'd like to contribute to the team's GoFundMe page, click here.

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