Up before 7:00 on Tuesday morning, at 7:30 I hit the road north to the Arena in Reading. This was a special Education Day game starting at 10:30, the Adirondack Thunder was the opponent. The Royals reached the season's midpoint with the completion of a 4-1 road trip, since the New Year started they are 11-3-1. On this day they kept the good times rolling with a convincing home-ice win. The visitors carried a 1-0 lead into the second period, midway through the stanza Trevor Gooch and Thomas Ebbing lit the lamp twenty-two sconds apart to put the Royals up 2-1. Two minutes later Kenny Hausinger made it 3-1, late in the period Josh Winquist (back in the lineup from an injury absense) extended the advantage to three. In the final period Gooch and Ebbing each scored their second goal of the day to close out the 6-1 victory, Kirill Ustimenko was the goaltender of record. The club's mark stands at 22-9-6 and 12-1-3 at home, the Royals host Trois-Rivieres for a pair of games on the 11th and 12th. The game was over by 12:45, I got back to town in good order and relaxed before heading over to McCaskey at 5:00 for the final home game of basketball season. JPM did not qualify for postseason play but on this night we had a chance to finish the season at .500 and the mission was accomplished. In the JV game the boys lost to Hempfield to finish at 8-12, the team started poorly but improved greatly as the season progressed. The varsity game was a typical Hempfield/McCaskey battle all the way, JPM won 54-46. The atmosphere was raucous and it was great to see a good turnout for what was basically (at least for us) a "lame-duck" finale. The loss knocked Hempfield out of first place in the division, Manheim Township tied them for the top spot and finished first on "criteria" (no tiebreaker game unlike 2021 when we lost to Hempfield in a playoff game for the division). JPM's final record of 11-11 included a 7-6 league mark, the club was 4-5 against our nine non-league opponents. The club was 6-5 at home and 5-6 on the road, they averaged 59.3 points per game and surrendered an average of 54.9. The average margin of victory was 21.5 points, the average loss was by 12.7. Hasan Williams led the squad in points (349) and average (15.9), Jared Kumah averaged 10.1, Jonathan Byrd (9.6) and Shamell Burke (9.3) just missed double-figures. In four seasons as head coach Freddy Ramos' record stands at 46-40 (.535). The season ended sixty days after it began, the first eleven games were played in thirty-six days (December 11 to January 15), with the last eleven over twenty-two days (January 18 to February 8). Every season seems to go by faster and faster, this was my thirty-fourth back with the program at JPM and next December will be here before you know it. Take care, thanks for reading.
