BERLIN- Stephen Decatur’s boys’ varsity basketball team, along with several other teams from the Bayside Conference, are competing this week in the 3rd Annual Governor’s Cup Holiday Basketball Tournament featuring the top teams from Maryland against some of Delaware’s best.

For years, the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center in Salisbury has played host to holiday basketball tournament featuring some of the best prep teams from around the region between Christmas and New Year’s. Two years ago, for the first time, the tournament was renamed the Governor’s Cup after Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley issued a challenge to Delaware Gov. Jack Markel with a Maryland Smith Island cake on the line against a Delaware peach pie for the winner.

This week, the second annual Governor’s Challenge Cup is underway, although it has been renamed the M&T Bank Cup, and again features some of the top teams from Maryland’s Eastern Shore against a strong field of teams from Delaware. Decatur is among the Bayside South Conference teams represented along with Parkside, Crisfield, Washington, Pocomoke, Snow Hill, Bennett and Wicomico.

Delaware teams in the field include Cape Henlopen, Indian River, Sussex Central, Sussex Tech, Woodbridge, Laurel, Milford, Seaford, Delmar, Delmarva Christian, Arcadia and Campus Community. Decatur faced Arcadia yesterday in a game played too late to be included in this edition. The Seahawks get their second test today when they play Sussex Central at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center at 2 p.m.

The tournament expanded last year to include two new cups including the Dr. Pepper 10 Cup featuring ten of the top teams in Maryland from both sides of the Chesapeake. Finally, the tournament will feature an elite division called the East Coast Challenge with four of the region’s top high school teams. The tournament started on Wednesday and will go on all weekend through the final games tomorrow at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center. Last year, the teams from Delaware took the Governor’s Cup, amassing 13 wins to Maryland’s 10 in the competitions between schools from the two states.