January 27-30

Monday morning at the mall started the week in the usual manner, after supper I was at basketball practice at McCaskey. I had texted Freddy to bring the books so I could get them prepared for Tuesday but that request was in reality as much superstition-based as anything else. When I was absent on December 13 my next game was a home game, I got the books from Freddy that night and we won. When I was absent again on January 3 and 4 I returned at a home game and the same scenario occurred. I was absent on the 17th and returned for a road game, I got the books from Freddy when we got on the bus and on that night we LOST. Since I was just absent again on Friday and our next game is on the road I decided to break the pattern, maybe it's silly but it made me feel better. I was explaining all of this to assistant coach Jason Yurchak before practice started and he said he understood exactly where I was coming from. On Tuesday we boarded the bus for the first of a three-game week (all on the road), the destination was Ephrata for the last league crossover game of the season. This is the second (and by many reports the last) year for the current schedule format where we played the other four teams from Section II in December and had this matchup near the end. This was in many ways a trap game given what lies ahead, Ephrata entered winless at 0-18 with an average margin of defeat at twenty points. The JV squad improved to 15-3 with a thirty-two point win, the varsity took care of its business by an identical margin. We were up by ten after one and fourteen at the half, by the end of the third the lead was up to twenty-eight, the final was 65-33. Freddy got fourteen players into the game and ten of them scored, several of our higher scorers had lesser totals but on this night against this opponent it didn't hurt. Samir Gordon (11) and Makai Ortiz-Gray (10) hit double figures, Elijah Terry had nine, Sam Hershey scored eight, Kevin Polite and Irving Gonzalez had seven each. Isaiah Thomas added five points, Jonathan Byrd had four and Carter Gingerich and Hasan Williams rounded out the book with two points each. In all honesty there would have been no excuse to lose this game but anytime we play within our league you take nothing for granted (especially on the road), had Ephrata pulled an upset it would be talked about for years. The boys stand at 13-5 overall and 9-2 in the league, the club has clinched a top-two finish in our division and the league playoff berth that goes with it. It's the first time the program has had any postseason since 2016. Wednesday lunch with Jenny and a Thursday morning errand run was all that happened on either day as we gear up for a busy weekend. Take care, thanks for reading.