Friday night basketball on the floor at McCaskey, Cedar Crest made the trip south from Lebanon County. Over the last ten years or so CC has been (credit where credit is due) one of the league's top programs, a game with them is never expected to be easy. They lost a great deal to graduation from their '19-20 team although one could say that about us as well, this game was the first meeting of the new season (it should have been the second but we all know the story by now). On this night at JPM the events unfolded into a surprisingly one-sided victory. We were up by five after one quarter and seven at the break, a 26-13 third quarter advantage broke the game open as JPM took it 67-47. Hasan Williams led with 18, backcourt mate Johnathan Byrd joined him in double figures with 15. Javonzee Washington and Kevin Bell scored nine each, Jared Kumah had six, Sam Hershey and Grady Bachman added four points each and Jayon Burnside rounded out the book with a field goal. It's an important divisional win which improves the mark within the division to 4-1. There was little time to savor the victory, on Saturday afternoon we were back at home for a date with perennial state power Reading High. The JV game tipped at 1:00 and was decided early on as JPM suffered a third consecutive loss, in the varsity game RHS took control early and led by twelve at halftime. The second half was more competitive but Reading was never headed, at the buzzer the final score was 56-45. Hasan Williams was again the top scorer for JPM with 17, Jonathan Byrd and Javonzee Washington had eight each, Sam Hershey had seven, Jyzel Mitchell and Kevin Bell had two points each and Jared Kumah was 1-2 at the line. This game concluded the REAL non-league portion of the schedule, the club went 0-4 against some of the tougher competition in the state. The entire point of a non-league schedule is to test yourself, find out how good you really are and what you need to do to improve. After the game we got word that the game at Cedar Crest on the 8th was being postponed yet again with the makeup date to be determined. By the time we get that game played it will be a makeup of a makeup of a makeup. Take care, thanks for reading.
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