February 24-25

The Thursday newspaper carried a story about the basketball game at Reading HS on Wednesday night, the season ended for JPM with a 75-66 loss. The final record: 17-11 although I will maintain that it's really 17-10-1 thanks to that nonsense in Harrisburg back in December (and don't even ask me about Cocalico in January). In nineteen years as head coach Steve Powell's mark stands at 350-171. As usual the season was the roller-coaster ride we seem to have every year, there are high school programs in our area that would crumble if they ever had to deal with what JPM does. It just makes the club's success all the sweeter and this year was a wonderful example. After fifteen games we were 7-8 and people wrote the team off. The boys won six of their next seven to force a tie for a section title that was seemingly in the hip pocket of another team, a victory in the tie-breaker game won the championship that nobody outside of JPM thought possible. The club met that same team again for the league title and lost but there was no shame in that because nobody thought JPM would be there to begin with. We lose three seniors but there were twelve players on the season-ending roster eligible to return so perhaps this year is a harbinger of better times ahead. For the record Diante Cherry led the club in totals points (418) and average per game (14.9), Brian Newsome and Luis Fuentes also averaged in double figures. Cherry, Calvert Gantz and Blaise Glover were the only players in appear in every game. I noted the results of the other games and that Harrisburg had lost as well, there's a delicious slice of irony to that (after what happened up there in December I guess it shows that in the long run cheaters don't benefit). On Thursday I had lunch with Jenny at the pizza parlor in Quarryville, later in the day rain moved into the area. With temperatures staying well above freezing the snow is melting down, let's keep it that way. Stopped by the school after lunch on Friday to drop off the scorebook and final stats at the athletic office. Not much else on the schedule until Sunday in Reading, it's the annual "Battle Of The Badges" game followed by the Royals hosting Gwinnett. Take care, thanks for reading.