Looking back at nine nights of summer basketball at Cedar Beach

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/ FROM KEITH GROLLER Spent nine of the last 12 nights at Cedar Beach for our annual July high school hoopfest -- the Stellar and SportsFest basketball tournaments. I know that there's a rivalry that still exists, at least to a degree, between the two tournaments. But we're now five years into having back-to-back events, and it's clear to me that the community has accepted and come to enjoy both tournaments, and there's a certain letdown when they're all over. Tournament directors Glen Klein and Chris Lakatosh both do an outstanding job with running their respective events. Neither is an easy undertaking and while some people may like this about that one and prefer this about the other one, I have come to appreciate the different styles of each tournament. They are not alike and that's good.SPORTSFEST BOYS BB CHAMP 1 of 3_001 Hopefully, the kids and coaches appreciate what they have here with these two events that draw fans and media coverage. NOTE: Jimmy Hahn of Parkland (left) was misidentified as Nick Rindock in a Morning Call photo on Monday morning. On a personal note, I enjoy the time I spend with both staffs -- people like Bob Trinkle, Bob Wootsick, John Hrebik, Jay Radio and Tom Malone on the Stellar staff and folks like Andy McGeehin, Anthony Abdalla, Jarrad Max, Jason Bogden Matt Zwetolitz and Toomey Anderson on the SportsFest crew. My favorite on the SportsFest girls staff is Amy Krause, who makes sure I have the scores up-to-date at all times. I don't see most of these people at any other time of the year, so it becomes like a family reunion when I do see them. When the games and story-writing are over, I enjoy sitting out there at Cedar sometimes late into the night and talking to these guys and seeing what they're thinking. There's not a lot of life-changing decisions that are made on these post-tournament nights, but just a lot of camaraderie and story-telling. What did we learn about the coming basketball season? Well, put simply, that very little has changed. Parkland, Freedom, Liberty, Easton are all very good LVC teams with Emmaus, Allen, Dieruff and Central all having the potential to win a lot of games this winter depending on how different circumstances go. Nazareth, Northampton, Whitehall and Bethlehem Catholic remain hard to figure, but I won't count any of them out either. Pocono Mountain West is the class of the MVC and Salisbury is still probably the team to beat in the Colonial. We also learned that Parkland's Austin Beidelman is probably going to lead the area in scoring next year, and that Freedom's Derike Chiclana, Allen's R.J. Fletcher and Emmaus' Derek Tannous, among others, are all headed for outstanding seasons. The same goes for Pocono West's Eric Vick. As for the girls tournaments, all I can say is that the Colonial League doesn't have to take a backseat to anyone. I realize that Central Catholic wasn't in either tournament, but I think on overall balance, the Colonial very well could be better than the LVC and I don't know of any other sport in which I could say that without people suggesting that I go see a head doctor. Sara Jones of Northwestern in particular impressed me. And I will say this as well, the girls coaches I talked to over the past few weeks all seem to be good guys genuinely passionate about the sport and their kids. I don't deal with them nearly as much as I deal with the boys coaches, but I was impressed with how classy they were. All in all, as I say so long to Cedar, it was a nice couple of weeks with just two nights spent indoors. Not bad considering. They were busy, hectic nights, but great events to bring the local sports community together. Now on to the rest of our summer ...