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Teams kick off winter season with first official day of practice

01.01.70

While the Friday morning sun melted what paltry snow had fallen the night before, Mid Valley's boys basketball duo already was in the gym running drills and hustling through sprints.

In the afternoon, the Spartanettes second-hand the beginning of their practice to coordinate phone numbers and get to skilled in one another.

Local high school girls and boys basketball and wrestling teams took to the courts and mats for the first day of winter sports in real life inexperienced Friday.

The nonleague schedule for boys and girls basketball and wrestling begins Dec. 9.

Lackawanna Confederacy play in basketball opens for girls Dec. 20 and for boys Dec. 21. Combination matches for wrestling begin Jan. 4.

"I liked the vitality the guys brought today," Mid Valley boys basketball drill Mike Abda said. "A lot of the kids were enthusiastic to get back at it.

"I think there was a lot of momentum from last year's practices that seemed to convey over into this year. Just the intensity."

Mid Valley's boys clinched the settled spot in the District 2 Class AA playoffs last spice, but lost to Riverside in a close overtime tactic in the first round.

Source: Scranton Times-Tribune

Rider helps kick off NCAA basketball season with 6 am game

01.01.70

Rightful minutes before the pre-dawn tip-off, empty cans by the dozens of Rockstar vigour drink were strewn atop the tables in the settee adjacent to Rider’s Alumni Gym. In all of the many colors — yellow, downcast and the black for double caffeine — this was the tailgate fete to what has become New Jersey’s niche in the 24-hour marathon that is the unannounced start to the college basketball season.

For three unaltered years, a Jersey school has participated in the 6 a.m. trick as part of the daylong affair.

This year, it was Rider that played mob. The students showed up at the Student Recreation Center at 3 in the morning, breakfast and coffee was served at four. The pre-evident to pandemonium wasn’t quite ratcheted up until every prehistoric riser had their proper dose of caffeine.

In an empty cafeteria one construction over, Broncs coach Tommy Dempsey ate his eggs and sausage breakfast. ESPN had approached him to partake in the fete of hoops and he agreed, before knowing the time-hollow out. His only worry was giving up a home game to an out-of-symposium rival, Drexel, that might be played in an empty vacuum of an arena unfilled by college students who do not often even recollect about getting up that early.

Source: The Star-Ledger - NJ.com