January 22-23

What should be a very busy week began with a Monday afternoon bus ride into the rural regions of the eastern part of the county. Pequea Valley is one of the county's smaller school districts and as such are a rare opponent, on this day the JV squad played the last of its three stand-alone dates. The club played Manheim Central and Lancaster Mennonite at home, they also met Warwick and L-S in December when the varsity was involved in tournaments. I'd been in the gym at PV in the past but not since the 1980s (at least), with the exception of upgraded seating the place was much like I remembered it. JPM won the game 50-32 to improve to 8-8. On Tuesday night at home both teams were in action, the second half of divisional play began with Lebanon visiting. Our opponent entered on a losing streak in the mid-30s, their last victory coming in the '21-22 season. When we visited Lebanon in December the JV club won easily, on this night they made it two straight to climb above the .500 mark. It took an overtime period for the varsity to get out of Lebanon with a win, this time around was another dogfight to the finish but the Good Guys emerged with a 75-64 decision. De'Andre Jones had a monster night with thirty-one points, Cesar Peguero had fifteen, Aiden Burgess and Nemias Tirado added ten each, Eddie Bencosme had five points and Kamryn Pugh finished out the scoring with four. It's no secret that Lebanon is way down right now and the last thing anybody wants is to be the team that loses to them but credit must be given where it's due: they have some nice underclassman talent and it's not hard to see them turning it around sooner rather than later. The win ends a four-game skid for JPM, the division record is even at 3-3 and overall 6-10. Take care, thanks for reading.