March 5

Saturday was a day of mixed results much like those old good news/bad news jokes, we'll do the good news first: McCaskey won its first-round state playoff game over Abington Heights 50-46. The game was played at a college facility in Scranton, about 120 miles from Lancaster and about six or eight from our opponent's home base. It marks the second straight year the boys have played and defeated a district champion in their backyard, the win puts us into the second on Wednesday the 9th with site and opponent to be determined. The bad news of the evening came in downtown Reading as the Royals suffered a second straight home-ice loss to the Wheeling Nailers. Before the game Gordon Kaye became the newest member of the Royals Wall-Of-Honor, GK was the club's general manager from 2005-2010. The induction ceremony was originally scheduled for January 23 but Mother Nature had other ideas, as a resident of Denver, Colorado I'm sure Gordon knows all about snow. In the game itself the Royals fell behind 1-0, Yannick Tifu's goalmouth tip-in tied the score at the first intermission. The Nailers retook the lead in the second, two more Wheeling scores early in the third put the Royals in a three-goal hole. Joey Sides scored with five minutes to go to bring the club within two, Brandon Alderson's goal with two seconds left brought the final score to 4-3. The club's goaltending situation has been remarkably unsettled since the new year started, with Martin Ouellette in the AHL, Adam Morrison on the injured list and Connor Knapp less than 100% rookie Alex Vazzano (Sacred Heart University product) got the start in goal. The club hosts Norfolk on Sunday after the annual Battle Of The Badges game at 12:30. Take care, thanks for reading.