Lake Zurich Boy Who Won ESPN Bracket Challenge Gets His Trip to Hawaii - From Scout

It turns out Sam Holtz, the 12-year-old Lake Zurich boy who nearly had a perfect NCAA tournament bracket, is going to Hawaii after all.

Scout.com (SCOUT Fantasy) has booked a week-long trip to the Kaanapali Alii Resort in Maui for Holtz, his parents and older brother.

“I am at a loss for words,” said Sam’s father, Butch Holtz. “It’s just so cool that, wow, someone’s giving us a gift like that, and we get to go as a family.

Holtz’ bracket, which correctly predicted the results of the Final Four and landed 15 of the teams in the Sweet 16, bested more than 11.5 million others on ESPN, which had planned to offer a chance to be entered into a $20,000 Best Buy gift card giveaway in addition to a trip to Maui for the Invitational college basketball tournament to the person with the best entry.

But Holtz was declared ineligible because he was not at least 18 years of age.

The other portion of his prize has already been covered by Best Buy, which offered his family a shopping spree. Instead, Holtz opted just for two Xbox game systems - one for himself and another to donate to charity.

RELATED: ESPN Won’t Give Prize to NCAA Bracket Winner - Because He’s 12

Scout.com explained their decision to offer the family a trip to Hawaii:

“We were drawn to this story because it’s about two things: family and sports. For many people and for ourselves included, sports were something we fell in love with as kids. We played Little League and Pop Warner. We played practically every sport there is to play. The spirit for competition tapped into something inside of us. We watched games with our families in the living room, cheering for the wins and crying after the losses. At some point, we all filled out our first bracket and watched our first March Madness tournament. Never in a million years did Sam think he had any shot at winning, but he did. Nobody fills out a bracket expecting to beat 11 million other people. Sam filled out a bracket because he wanted to enjoy March Madness the same way the rest of us have all our lives. So while the adults argue about red tape, rules, regulations, legalities, tax obligations and more, Sam beat your bracket and he beat our brackets too. Kudos to Sam and well done!”

See Holtz’ bracket here