February 21-22

Typical errand runs on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, on Wednesday evening it was a basketball night at JPM. As a top-eight seed in the district tournament the club earned the right to host its first-round opponent and they made the most of it. For the first time since 2007 the McCaskey Red Tornado advanced to the district quarterfinals with a 60-47 verdict over Hempfield. Even though they were the #12 seed and we were #5 there is no such thing as easy money, history is littered with lower seeds pulling first-round upsets. This was the third time we faced Hempfield this season, even with two wins on the record there was no reason to think it would be easy because JPM-Hempfield never is. We trailed by one after the first quarter but the boys rallied to take a six-point lead at the half. The club upped the advantage to eleven after the third quarter and took it home from there. Devonne Pinkard had the big night with 20 points, Diante Cherry added 12 as eight of the nine players Coach Powell used dented the scoring column. The victory moves the club's record to 21-5 and guarantees us at least three more games. First up is a quarterfinal matchup against York on Saturday afternoon. We defeated York in our holiday tournament but that was back in December which was a long time ago. The game is scheduled for 2:30 at East Pennsboro HS in Enola, that's north of Harrisburg on the other side of the Susquehanna River. I'll be absent since the Royals are at home in the evening, there's no way I could do both with the time element and travel involved. After Saturday we'll play again on Tuesday the 28th and either Thursday or Saturday depending on the results. Take care, thanks for reading.