January 6-7

Monday morning at the mall for lunch, in the evening we started a busy week of basketball at McCaskey. Manheim Township was the opponent, in the JV game MT won 53-46. This was the first league loss for JPM since the 2010-11 season, in 2012 the club was undefeated at 19-0 and in '13 both losses were to non-league opposition. In the varsity game order was restored as the Red Tornado prevailed 86-70. The final margin was somewhat misleading, this was your typical LL Section I fight-to-a-finish. We were ahead by five at the quarter and eight at the half, at the end of three the lead was only seven. Tempers flared in the final quarter as words were exchanged and technical fouls were accessed, from there JPM pulled away for the win. McCaskey had four players in double figures: Kobe Gantz led with 23, Antanee Pinkard added 22, Randolph Speller had 14 and La'Detrius Sibley rounded out the list with 10. The victory keeps the league mark spotless at 5-0 and at 6-4 overall. The week's challenges continue on Wednesday with a trip to Cedar Crest, the rescheduled game with Warwick on Thursday and a date with Hempfield on Friday. When I came out after the game it was markedly colder, overnight into Tuesday the temperatures dropped below zero. The forecasts were calling it a polar vortex, when I went out for the morning errand run it was two degrees above with a wind chill factor of -19. I did what I had to do and returned home in good order, there was no point in being out any longer than absolutely necessary. Later in the afternoon I took the scorebooks over to school since I'll be absent from Wednesday's game (but I'm OK for the others). According to the forecasts it's supposed to warm up all the way to 26 on Wednesday with temperatures in the 50s by the weekend (YOU figure it out). Take care, thanks for reading.