February 20

Good news in the morning paper, the young men of JPM kept their season alive on Saturday night with a 68-49 win over Muhlenburg. This advances them to a game on Wednesday the 23rd against Reading HS, as the higher seed the game will be on RHS's home floor. That's something new for the district tournament, in the past all games after the prelim round were at neutral sites. We played Reading back in December and lost by 22 points but that means little at this point. It's another one-and-done scenario, win and go on or lose and go home. For what it's worth I also saw where Hempfield's season ended abruptly with a loss in their prelim game on Saturday. It's like that old expression, "one day you're on top, the next day the FBI can't find you". On Sunday afternoon I was on the road north (by myself this time) as the Elmira Jackals visited the Sovereign Center. The Royals scored three goals in the first period and never looked back as they racked up a 5-2 win. After losing the first two meetings with Elmira at home this season the Royals have won the last four. Ben Gordon, Ryan Cruthers, Olivier Labelle, Chris Blight and Andrew Sarauer were the goal-scorers, Matt Dalton won his third game of the weekend in net. The Royals play next at home on Wednesday the 23rd against Trenton. Just to show how unfair life can be-on that night the JPM boys will be in Reading and so will I, the only problem is we'll be at different games in different venues. A win at RHS would advance the club to a quarterfinal round game on the 26th (which I would be good for), a loss would wrap things up for the season. As it stands right now Wednesday night is the next major event on the calendar. Take care, thanks for reading.