February 20-21

Saturday morning lunch in Quarryville with Jenny, in late afternoon we boarded the bus at McCaskey. I've probably driven through Dallastown once or twice in my life but not for a long time, the area is one largely unfamiliar to me. This was my first time in the gym at the high school, it's a nice enough facility but nowhere near large enough to support the crowd this night drew. There was a girls game before ours, people were sitting in the aisles and reports were that many were turned away at the door. This was to prove to be a forgettable night for the Red Tornado, we lost 71-52. Spring Grove is an excellent team and you can't take anything away from their effort but we certainly got no help at all from the officiating crew (once again from the Mid-Penn Conference). Sometimes it is utterly amazing how a man can get mugged at one end of the floor with no call made while at the other end the slightest contact draws a whistle. One team's top players can play the entire game with only one or two fouls while the other team is in foul trouble right from the get-go. It all came to a head in the final minutes when one of our players (playing with four fouls) was called for a charge which disqualified him. Coach Powell used the substitution timeout to register dissatisfaction to the referee, he reacted to the official's reply angrily and was assessed a technical foul. I've known him since 1988 and I can count the number of "Ts" he's ever received on one hand, it is rare for him to be so visibly demonstrative. The loss puts us into the playback round on Tuesday the 23rd against our old friends from Hempfield, they are on the same side of the bracket as we are and they lost their quarterfinal game earlier in the day. According to the district bracket the game was supposed to be played back in Dallastown, on Sunday night it was announced that it had been moved to Manheim Township HS. There is no question it is the right decision, it would be senseless to send two Lancaster County teams to York County when a spacious venue five miles out of town is available. A win on Tuesday would put us into the fifth place game on Thursday, a loss would consign us to the seventh-place game on the same night. Lebanon and Carlisle meet in the other game on Tuesday, we'll see one or the other on Thursday no matter what. Take care, thanks for reading.