Foreword written by Mike Gross of LNP…   Archbishop Ryan’s Aaron Lemon-Warren was leading the powerful Philadelphia Catholic League in scoring in the 2019-20 season when a broken foot shut him down for the year. Ryan started this season two weeks after everyone else in the PCL due to a COVID-19 shutdown, and the PCL […]

Foreword written by Mike Gross of LNP…   It was far from a normal boys’ basketball season for Neumann-Goretti, one of Pennsylvania’s most successful programs. The Saints, who have won nine state championships since 2009, went 4-6 with no postseason in 2020-21, thanks to a combination of pandemic-related issues and the use, acknowledged by the […]

Foreword written by Mike Gross of LNP…   “The only thing on my bucket list that I really want,’’ Loyalsock boys’ basketball coach Ron Insinger told the Williamsport Sun-Gazette last month, was a state championship. Insinger’s Lancers got him there a few days later, defeating Brookville 75-53 for the PIAA Class 3A championship and completing […]

Foreword written by Mike Gross of LNP….   No Pennsylvania high school basketball team had a better year than Class AA state champion Sacred Heart, a truth reflected in voting for the Pennsylvania Sportswriters’ all-state team. Jake DiMichele, a 6-3 junior swingman for the Chargers, is the AA player of the year, which goes to […]

Foreword written by Mike Gross of LNP….   Berlin Brothersvalley, a small public high school in Somerset County, accomplished about all it could in boys’ basketball the past two years without winning a state championship. The Mountaineers went a combined 55-3, and were stopped short of the big prize by COVID-19 halting the PIAA tournament […]

Foreword written by Mike Gross of LNP…   High honors have gotten routine and redundant for Germantown Academy basketball star Jordan Longino. Longino, a 6-4 senior guard bound for Villanova, is the Non-PIAA Player of the Year, which goes to the leading vote-getter for the Pennsylvania Sportswriters’ Non-PIAA all-state team, announced Sunday. Longino was Class […]

For as strange of a year that the 2020-21 Lancaster-Lebanon League Boys’ high school basketball season was, any semblance of normalcy—no matter how brief it may have been—was always a welcomed sign. From players suiting up in masks, to teams literally having to live by the mantra of “taking one day at a time” in […]

Like anything else in life, the further and further you advance in any given situation where the ramifications are raised exponentially with each passing level, the challenges only grow steeper and steeper. In Lancaster Catholic’s case, that was something the Crusaders were about to find out first-hand on Saturday afternoon at Cardinal O’Hara High School […]

Lancaster Catholic 50 Riverside 47 First Round of PIAA 3A Boys March 17, 2021 For most teams, just making the postseason is an accomplishment worthy of celebrating. Fair enough. Then again, not everyone is exactly Lancaster Catholic either. Long established as one of the Lancaster-Lebanon League’s premier franchises, seeing the Crusaders succeed on the hardwood […]

Typically, when we think of the month of March, we generally think of two things. Ironically, they just so happen to go hand in hand. First and foremost, we think of the game of basketball. After all, “March Madness” is a phrase that has become so popular that it has worked its way into the […]

In some ways, it was almost unfair that Columbia and Lancaster Catholic were forced to play one another again on Tuesday night. After all, what could they possibly do for an encore after playing one of the best games that the Lancaster-Lebanon League has seen in quite some time when the Crusaders were able to […]

For the Warwick Warriors, the 2020-21 season figured to be one of more memorable years that the town of Lititz had seen from their boys on the hardwood for quite some time. After all, if there was a team in the Lancaster-Lebanon League that was built to withstand the total loss of an off-season thanks […]

In some ways, when Hempfield and Lebanon matched up with one another in the opening round of the District 3-6A playoffs on Wednesday night, both the Black Knights and Cedars were in a no-win situation of sorts. After all, how in the world could they possibly top what was one of the best Lancaster-Lebanon League […]

Losing is difficult. Losing a game in overtime is agonizing. Losing against a rival is painful. Losing in the playoffs is excruciating. Now, try and imagine if you had to wrap up all of those aspects into one. Suffice to say, that’s a hard chore to try and put just one singular word on that. […]

            Lebanon 41 Hempfield 40 LL Boys Final @ TWP Feb 27, 2021 To be perfectly honest, we didn’t know who would end up making it to Manheim Township this year to compete for the Lancaster-Lebanon League championship. Shoot, we didn’t know if anyone would be able to make it […]