January 25

The brutally cold weather continues, on Saturday morning there were snow flurries blowing around. The Red Tornado beat Elizabethtown in their Friday makeup game to improve the league mark to 10-2, on this day we convened at JPM at 1:00 for a bus trip to Berks County. Every season Reading HS hosts a "showcase" event on a Saturday, this is the third year we've been a part of it. This was our final non-league game, the opponent was Penn Wood from Lansdowne (suburban Philadelphia). According to rankings PW is one of the better teams in the state, for our side it was probably a question of what was left in the tank since this was our third game in less than forty-eight hours. The game started at 3:00 and for the most part we had the advantage, entering the last quarter we were up by seven. In the final minutes Penn Wood rallied from a fifteen-point deficit to tie the game but JPM was able to hold on and pull out a 67-63 win. Coach Powell used nine players and everyone scored, Kobe Gantz led with 16 while Antanee Pinkard had 15 and Randolph Speller added 12. After the game the team was in the locker room for some time with the coaching staff, the topic of conversation was how important each remaining game is and there is no such thing as easy money. The club's overall record stands at 12-6, we finish 2-4 within our non-league schedule. The boys are in the running for playoff spots in the league and the district but nothing is settled yet, the last four games will tell the story. We play at Warwick on the 28th and Manheim Township on the 31st before hosting Cedar Crest on February 3 and finishing at Hempfield on the 5th. Big games, one and all. Take care, thanks for reading.