January 23-24

Sunday afternoon: to Quarryville for Jenny and Helen, then on to Hershey for AHL hockey. The Adirondack Phantoms (from Glens Falls, New York) were in town, as a Flyers fans I look forward to seeing the AHL affiliate on their rare visits to Hershey (the Phantoms visit four times this season, this was the only one I could make it to). The Flyers were affiliated with Hershey from 1984-1996 but the saga of that relationship is another story for another time. The Phantoms have not had a good season, they started poorly and have only recently begun to right the ship, any chances at a postseason playoff berth are long gone. Hershey won the game 5-1 which wasn't entirely surprising given the Phantoms' struggles this year. On Monday evening we were back at McCaskey for another crossover game with Section II, Conestoga Valley was the opponent. After three consecutive wins followed by three straight losses the boys got back into the win column with a 67-57 verdict over CV. It wasn't the most dominating performance but we'll take it, a win is a win. We only had one player in double figures (Brian Newsome had 19) but there was good balance underneath, Tyler Martin had nine points while Luis Fuentes and Shaki Staten had eight apiece. The win improves the league record to 7-3 and brings us back to .500 at 8-8 overall. There are six games left in the regular season, on Wednesday we finish the crossover portion with a game in Lebanon. The club is still in contention for league and district playoff berths but as the Hollies once sang "the road is long with a-many a winding turn". We'll see what happens on Wednesday. Take care, thanks for reading.