December 30

Monday morning at the mall for lunch, in the afternoon we convened at McCaskey for a bus ride to Berks County. This was the makeup date for the game at Reading High which had been postponed by snow a few weeks earlier. For me it was my second road game but my first on the bus, I had driven to Quarryville on my own when we played Solanco. This was the second time the boys had traveled to the Reading area in December, the first being the preseason scrimmage at Wilson. School buses weren't built with people my height and weight in mind, I'm always sore after a trip of any length. Any time I'm in Reading or environs for a high school event I always run into people I know, this night was no exception. Paul "Cooter" Jones (a long-time fixture at Reading High and a dear friend from baseball days in Berks County) was the scoreboard clock operator and RHS's scorekeeper was familiar with my work as well. The evening started with a JV game that can only be described as bizarre. After one quarter the score was 11-9, at halftime it still was. RHS had the possession to start the second quarter and they held the ball for virtually the entire period. For close to seven minutes the ten players on the floor did next to nothing, there was no action to speak of until the last thirty seconds. The game ended up in overtime before RHS won 37-31, the first loss of the season for our guys. In the varsity game we had only nine players in uniform thanks to injury and absence, Coach Powell used seven of them in an 82-73 loss. The club came out flat and trailed by double digits early, they rallied to within three in the second half but could get no closer. Antanee Pinkard led with 26, Kobe Gantz had 17 and Tyler Owens (from the '13 JV squad) added 13 in a reserve role. The loss drops the team's record to 5-4, the four losses (all against non-league opponents) coming by an average of six points. Five of the six non-league games the club will play are in the books, the league schedule continues in the New Year with a home game on January 3rd. Take care, thanks for reading.