Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Big night for LVC boys basketball teams in holiday tournaments

FROM KEITH GROLLER

I was at Whitehall for the Zephyrs win over Saucon Valley in the Zephyr Classic Holiday tournament on Tuesday. Impressed with Whitehall, especially defensively.

That win was just part of a big night for Lehigh Valley Conference boys basketball teams in tournament play. By my count, LVC teams were 9-0 on Tuesday with Northampton and Dieruff set to play tonight in Northampton and Bethlehem Catholic to play in York.

Parkland, Emmaus, Central Catholic, Freedom, Nazareth, Liberty, and Allen all won first-round games and will play in championship games on Wednesday night.

Easton, meanwhile, easily won the Easton Rotary tournament at Lafayette College, beating Wilson by 28, although it was a one-point game at halftime.

Jim Hutnik can't talk publicly about having his team in that tournament. It is a nice community event with four local teams involved, However, I know Jim and I know he'd much rather take his team on the road and face stiffer competition far away from the Delaware River.

But Jim's hands are tied in this situation.

He's not the only one with this dilemma. Coaches and ADs have to struggle with the idea of hosting their own tournament and keeping community organizations and school administrators happy - often getting lesser competition coming in -- or finding a really good tournament away from home and playing "up" when it comes to competition.

It will be interesting to see how many titles LVC wind up winning over these next few nights.

My guess is that at least five more teams will join Easton as tourney champs this week.

The LVC resumes play a week from Friday, Jan. 6, by the way.

Right now, the standings look like this:

LVC EAST

1. Freedom 2-0, 6-0

2. Liberty 2-0, 4-1

3. Easton 1-2, 6-3

4. Becahi 0-3, 0-5

LVC NORTH

1. Parkland 3-0, 6-0

2. Whitehall 2-1, 4-2

3. Northampton 1-2, 1-5

4. Nazareth 0-3, 2-4

LVC WEST

1. Emmaus 3-0, 5-1

2. Allen 2-1, 3-3

3. CCHS 1-2,4-2

4. Dieruff 0-3, 1-5

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/

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