February 14

Monday morning at the mall for lunch, in the evening it was playoff hoops at McCaskey. The L-L League has four divisions, this year Section I matched up with Section IV in the first round. In past seasons all league playoff games were at neutral sites, this year the first-round games were hosted by the four section winners. Annville-Cleona was our opponent, they were the second-place club from Section IV and came to town with a 19-3 record. Some would say that means little against us because they don't play the schedule we do but it's still a mark to be respected. This is the first time we have been in the league playoffs since 2008 so for our guys it's a new thing, none of them were around then. I've often said that McCaskey basketball is like Ike and Tina Turner singing "Proud Mary"-we never do anything easy, we do everything rough. In this game we were down by seventeen points after one quarter, at halftime we trailed by sixteen. The deficit was thirteen after three quarters, in the last quarter the Red Tornado blew at gale force outscoring A-C 25-7 for a huge 59-54 comeback win. Thirteen was the lucky number as Aaron Swinton, Diante Cherry and Brian Newsome all scored that many to tie for the team lead. Coach Powell rather enjoyed that irony, he wore #13 in his playing days. This victory was Coach Powell's 348th as head coach at JPM, he will break Pete Horn's school record with our next win. Hopefully that will come on Wednesday when we meet Lampeter-Strasburg (the Section III champion) in the semifinals, that game will be on neutral ground at Elizabethtown HS. The other two section champions lost in the first round, the other semifinal will feature Hempfield against Manheim Central (also a I vs III matchup). It's that crazy time of year, what will happen next? Take care, thanks for reading.