January 17-19

Tuesday night at McCaskey for the start of the league schedule's second half. Back in December we lost in overtime at Cedar Crest, on this night CC visited for round two. In the JV game JPM suffered its first league loss, the varsity game was an up-and-down roller-coaster ride that ended in another maddening defeat. The lead changed hands close to thirty times before CC prevailed 63-62. JPM had the last possession but was unable to get a good look at a potential game-winning shot. William Joseph had a career-best 19 for the Red Tornado, Ricky Cruz added 15, R.J. Godwin had 12 and Isiah Speller chipped in with 11 but it has no real meaning because the TEAM did not win. After the game Coach Powell noted that the team simply is not playing particularly smart basketball. At this point a league playoff berth may be all there is to play for, with an overall mark of 5-8 a spot in the district tournament may well be out of reach. It's been quite a while since we failed to qualify for districts (2004) but only twelve of twenty-two schools in the "6A" classification make it and right now we're on the outside looking in. On Wednesday Jenny and I were together for our usual lunch date, on Thursday I went over to basketball practice to give the scorebooks to Coach Powell. The boys play another weekend back-to-back on Friday and Saturday but I am absent for my own back-to-backer (hockey-style) at the Arena. Take care, thanks for reading.