January 7-8

The new week began in the usual accepted manner with a Monday morning visit to the mall. One of the mall's anchor stores closed its doors in the latter part of 2018, word is out that another is on the endangered list as well. The mall has been around since 1971 and it seems to be suffering the same fate as many others in these days of online shopping becoming more and more popular. On Tuesday night we were back at McCaskey for the first home game of the calendar year, Penn Manor was the opponent for a divisional matchup. The JV squad won its game to improve to 7-3, the varsity followed suit but it was a challenge. The boys started slowly and trailed by seven at the quarter, in the second they rallied back and took a two-point lead to the locker room. The lead was up to eight entering the last quarter, PM hung around and made it tough but the Red Tornado held on for a 54-48 win. Jahsaan Greaves led JPM with 13 points, Brian McKenzie was the only other man in double figures with ten. Isaiah Thomas added nine, Mohammed Nimmons-Francis had eight, Ajani Simmons and Carter Gingerich netted five each and Makai Ortiz had four. There are five teams in our division, only the top two finishers make league playoffs and it stands to reason that every night will be a fight to the finish. JPM stands at 5-1 in league play (3-1 in crossovers with Section II and 2-0 within our division) and overall at 7-4. The club has a tough weekend coming up with two non-league games on the calendar, Friday in Coatesville and Saturday at home versus Williamsport. Take care, thanks for reading.