January 9

Friday night basketball at McCaskey as we reached the midpoint of the LL league schedule. When the league was formed in 1972 it was basically the old Lancaster County League realigned with the addition of the schools from Lebanon County plus McCaskey from the old Central Penn League. From the very beginning McCaskey was the program with all the notoriety, to the suburban schools we were viewed as The Big Bad Bully Boys From The City. A case could be made that over the years no other program has rivaled JPM quite like Hempfield has. Year in and year out it doesn't matter what the records are, when these teams meet it is always a hot ticket. On this night at JPM the clubs went head-to-head dead even in the league standings. The night began with a Red Tornado victory in the JV game, in the varsity contest Hempfield had the early advantage but a late flurry gave JPM a two-point lead at the quarter. We were up by four at the half and stretched it to ten at the end of the third, it was only in the fourth quarter that JPM was able to pull away. The final score was 72-56 but that really doesn't tell the story, this game was your typical JPM-HHS fifteen-round fight to the finish. Kobe Gantz led the Red Tornado with 23, La'Detrius Sibley had 19 and Kyaire Bynum added 18. Kyaire is in his third year as a varsity player and has spent much of that time as a reserve, on this night Coach Powell inserted him into the starting lineup and he responded in a big way. With the victory the club's record moves to 7-1 in the league and 9-3 overall. The boys play a rare Sunday game on the weekend, it's part of a showcase event similar to the one we appear in at Reading High each year. Cedar Cliff (from suburban Harrisburg) is the opponent, the game is at Steelton-Highspire HS and I am absent because the Royals are at home. The league schedule continues on the 12th with the second round of crossover games, Conestoga Valley visits on Monday. Take care, thanks for reading.