January 27

Friday night hoops at McCaskey as the Red Tornado began the second round of divisional play, Penn Manor came to town for the rematch of that triple overtime game in Millersville on January 3. On this night there would be no extra play needed as JPM won in regulation 71-59. We led by a point after one quarter, by halftime the lead was up to sixteen. PM battled back to close to within six after three quarters but in the final period the boys were able to pull away and hold on for the win. Devonne Pinkard had the big night with 25 points, Luis Fuentes added 12 in a relief role as Coach Powell used nine players and eight of them scored. The first time we played PM they scored 78 points, 73 of them by two players (48 and 25 respectively). On this night JPM held that duo to just 43 (28 and 15) and the rest of the squad couldn't make up the difference, they used ten players but only six scored. The victory improves the overall mark to 13-4, 10-2 in league play. There will be precious little time to savor the win as the boys are right back at it on Saturday afternoon with a non-league game against Cedar Cliff at Reading HS. The game is part of a five-game showcase event featuring some of the area's top programs, we are the third game of the day (the first game is at 1:30, we play at 4:30). It will be the second time we've played there this season. the club lost to RHS back in December. After three league games this week it will be interesting to see how much the boys have left in the tank. Take care, thanks for reading.