January 8-9

Wednesday morning lunch with Jenny as usual, in the evening I was at McCaskey for my special-guest starring appearance on the PA. I rarely get to see the girls teams play and doing the PA happens even less frequently simply because the young lady who usually works their games is almost never absent. The JV squad won but the varsity took a loss as the program's rebuild continues. On Thursday night at JPM it was the boys' turn on the floor as Coatesville visited from Chester County for a non-league game. Coatesville is traditionally a very tough opponent, they entered the night as the #5 ranked team in the state with a roster featuring one player with over 1000 career points and another with over 2000. The JV game in itself was worth the price of admission, JPM's nine-game winning streak ended with a three point loss that had all the intensity of a varsity game. By the time it ended the building was virtually sold out and it was loud, the atmosphere definitely took me back to days of yore. The varsity game had a tough act to follow but it delivered in a big way as the Red Tornado battled to the end and prevailed 72-66. We were down by six at the quarter and three at the half, entering the final quarter we were up by one. Down the stretch the teams stood toe-to-toe and slugged it out to the finish, when the buzzer sounded several fans stormed the court to celebrate with the team. It is easily the biggest win thus far in Freddy's tenure as head coach and in my opinion it's the biggest since 2016 (the last time we qualified for any postseason play). Seven players appeared for JPM and six got into the scoring column, Elijah Terry had a huge night with 28 points with Makai Ortiz-Gray adding 15 and Isaiah Thomas posting 11. Samir Gordon scored nine points, Carter Gingerich had five including a key rebound/putback late in the game and Jonathan Byrd rounded out the book with four. The club reaches the midpoint of its overall schedule at 7-4. The varsity has not played on the road since December 18, the five-game homestand that followed became six when the game at Penn Manor was postponed. Over the last half of the season the team plays eight of eleven away from home, the first of those is on Saturday the 11th in Williamsport. Take care, thanks for reading.