February 13-15

Friday night in Neffsville for the league title game and another round of frustration for McCaskey basketball. A fan asked me before the game what my gut feeling was, I told him that I honestly couldn't say. I knew we would get our opponent's very best game simply because we always get everyone's best shot, how we responded to it would dictate the outcome. On the 5th in Lititz we started poorly and never recovered, on this night the early going was disturbingly familiar as Cedar Crest took a nine-point lead to the locker room at halftime. The deficit grew to as much as fifteen in the third but on this occasion JPM battled back, going into the fourth quarter we were down by eight. In the final minutes we managed to draw within two but could never get even, CC won it (and their second straight league championship) 70-66. Tyler Owens led all scorers with 21, Kobe Gantz and Randolph Speller had 11 apiece and La'Detrius Sibley had 10 but it was all for naught. This was our fourteenth appearance in the league title game in Coach Powell's twenty-three years at the helm and the sixth time we finished as the runner-up. The club's overall mark falls to 19-7 as the focus shifts to the district playoffs, our first game there is at home on the 18th against Cumberland Valley (a different CV of sorts from the Mid-Penn Conference). As the #4 seed we earned to right to host the game but at this point rankings are meaningless, every opponent is a challenge and there is no such thing as easy money. A win on the 18th puts us into the quarterfinals on the 21st, a loss ends the season (we lost in the first round in 2014). The rest of the weekend was quiet save for a Saturday visit with Jenny, that was all just as well because the weather turned bitterly cold with wind chill factors dipping below zero on Sunday. The Royals are in the midst of a five-game road trip, they won the opener on Wednesday to extend the winning streak to twelve before losing in overtime on Friday in Wheeling. On Saturday they won in Elmira 7-3, the Royals booster club ran a bus trip to the game. On Sunday morning I had a message on the Internet from some fans who had met members of my family there, later in the day my cousin Roxanne e-mailed and told me that she, her daughter Krista and granddaughter Brianna had been at the game and met the other people. Walt Disney was right, it's a small world after all. Take care, thanks for reading.