March 14-15

Saturday morning lunch in Quarryville, from there we embarked on the first leg of our four-county journey. Royersford is about forty-five miles (give or take) from Jenny's place, the online driving directions I had were right on so we had no trouble getting there except that it's not exactly a direct route by any means. We started in Lancaster County, traveled northeast through Chester County and arrived in Royersford (just over the Montgomery County line) around 1:45 or so (we were there before the team arrived, they had left Lancaster at 12:30). The game tipped off at 3:00 and it will long be remembered by all those who witnessed it as JPM advanced to the state semifinals for the first time since 2002 with a 60-59 win over La Salle College HS (from suburban Phialdelphia). This game was your typical face-to-face fifteen-round fight to the finish. We led by seven at the quarter and trailed by one at the half, entering the final period we were up by four. La Salle played in the state title game in 2014 and they showed their mettle by rallying to lead by one with ten seconds to go. On the ensuing possession Kobe Gantz's running jumper fell short but Tyler Owens was there to cash in the rebound with two seconds left to give us the lead. The crowd exploded, the buzzer sounded and everybody thought the game was over but WAIT!!! The officials ruled that La Salle had called timeout before the buzzer so the clock was reset to two seconds and they were given an inbounds play needing to go the length of the floor. Their strategy was defended beautifully, the time ran out and we celebrated victory for a second time since the first one didn't count. For a moment I couldn't help but think of the USA-Soviet Union debacle at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, at least on this occasion justice prevailed. Kobe was game-high with 26 (including career point #1000 late in the third quarter), Tyler had 18 with none bigger than the final two. The game wound down shortly after 4:30, the ladies and I got into my car and high-balled it west on route 422 into Berks County. We got to the Arena around 5:15, later than usual but still in plenty of time for the 7:05 hockey game. The Kalamazoo Wings were in town for a two-game set, their lone appearances of the season in Reading. On Saturday night each team scored once in the first period and once in the second with Olivier Labelle and Sean Wiles doing the honors for the Royals. In the third period the K-Wings scored three to the Royals' none and won it 5-2, Martin Ouellette took the loss in net. In the Sunday rematch it was just about all Royals as Jordan Heywood, Cam Reid, Olivier Labelle, Pat Mullane, Brett Flemming and Kevin Walrod lit the lamp in support of Connor Knapp in a testy 6-1 victory. The club's mark stands at 39-16-5 (20-10-2 at the Arena), the next home game is on Wednesday the 25th. On Sunday night we learned that the Tuesday basketball game is at Reading HS, our opponent is Philadelphia Roman Catholic. We played Roman in the very first game of the '13-14 season and lost by six but a lot of water has gone over the dam since then. At the very least it's nice to have the game in familiar surroundings, we played at RHS in January. Take care, thanks for reading.