Wednesday night hockey at the Arena, the Allen Americans (from the greater Dallas, Texas area) visited for the first time since December 2018. This was the opener of a three-game series, on this night Max Newton gave the Royals a 1-0 lead just over a minute after the game started. The visitors from The Lone Star State battled back to take a 2-1 advantage at the period's midpoint, just over a minute later Charlie Gerard answered accordingly to tie the game 2-2. Mason Millman's goal fifty-eight seconds into the second period put the Royals ahead for good, five minutes later Devon Paliani lit the lamp on a breakaway to put the club up by two. In the final period Newton's second goal of the night put away a 5-2 victory, Pat Nagle (back from the Phantoms) was goalie of record. The mark stands at 12-5-1 (7-2 at home), the series with Allen continues on Friday the 9th. Thursday night was Opening Night at home for boys basketball at McCaskey, the Red Tornado hosted perennial state power Reading High. JPM has only four returnees from '21-22 and only one of them has more than one season of varsity experience, the roster is very definitely a work in progress. The JV squad made its season debut and took a twenty-five-point loss, the varsity game was more of the same as JPM lost 69-40. Eric Centeno led with 16, Jonathan Byrd and Elias Garcia had six each, DeShaun McFadden scored five points, Markell Caine had three, Nemias Tirado and Robert Lewis added two points each. The club stands at 0-3 out of the gate but it's not entirely surprising, all three games were against very strong opposition. Twelve of the team's twenty-two games are against non-league opponents and the entire point is to play the strongest competition, perhaps taking a couple of lumps and finding out what you need to do to improve. The boys play next on Wednesday the 14th on the road in northeastern York County. Take care, thanks for reading.
