There was snow in the forecast for late Friday into Saturday, we actually had a touch of it early on Friday morning. There were some schools that opened late and postponed evening activities but McCaskey was not one of them, the game at home with Penn Manor went on as scheduled. It was Senior Night, at halftime of the varsity game the five graduating cheerleaders were spotlighted and before the game we saluted John Stewart, Nyaud Frazier, Thomas Foster, Kevin Ramirez, Grady Bachman, Shamell Burke and Hasan Williams as members of the Class of 2022. Haz and Shamell have been starters for most of the season, the others have played as reserves and on this night they comprised the all-Senior starting five. That unit combined to score seventeen points in the first quarter and forty-four for the game as JPM won going away 88-49. The result wasn't really surprising, Penn Manor has struggled through a two-win season and they were missing a few key people. In a way you feel sorry for them but at the same time you must win against teams that have poorer records because if the situation was reversed you know there would be absolutely no sympathy of any type shown to us. We had another shot of the white stuff overnight into Saturday, when I came out in the morning it was fifteen degrees and the wind made it feel like zero. We pulled out of the parking lot at McCaskey at 10:15 for the forty-mile trip northwest to suburban Harrisburg. In recent years Susquehanna Township has been a regular preseason scrimmage opponent, the boys were there back in November and Freddy commented on how strange it was to play an actual game against them so soon after. The games on this day were typical of those played against Mid-Penn Conference opponents in their gyms, the officials tried very hard to make it all about themselves. The JV game started with a technical foul issued in the pregame warmup (?), in the varsity game both coaches were T'd up. To say the afternoon wasn't an artistic success would be putting it mildly but both teams managed to bring it home, the JV won by twelve to improve to 7-10 and the varsity prevailed 60-50 to move to 9-10. The varsity played its first eleven games in the space of thirty-six days (from December 11 to January 15), from the 18th to the 29th the club played eight games in twelve days with two sets of back-to-back and one set of three-in three. The boys get to relax and get some quality practice time in before the next game on Wednesday the 2nd. Take care, thanks for reading.
