{"id":81974,"date":"2019-01-02T14:54:05","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T14:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"\/rcntv\/?p=81974"},"modified":"2023-04-25T14:04:25","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T14:04:25","slug":"2018-review-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astound.com\/atvn\/2018-review-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"2018 In Review-Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>The views expressed in this blog are<\/em> <em>those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RCN or any other agency, organization, employer or company.<\/em><\/strong><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you missed our \u201cYear-in-Review\u201d program on \u201cSportsTalk,\u201d here are a few more opinions from co-host <a title=\"Keith Groller\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mcall.com\/sports\/mc-bio-keith-groller-staff.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Keith Groller<\/a> and me (plus, you can hear all our topics and greater discussions on each item on our podcast: rcn.com\/atvn\/sports-talk )\u2026<\/p>\n<p><strong>1.\u00a0 Our Biggest 2018 Prediction That Came True<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Keith<\/strong> &#8212; That strife would continue in the high school ranks over the issue of boundary and non- boundary schools, the transfers and unlevel sports playing fields.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-ACyr4h68nI\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris<\/strong> \u2013 That the <a title=\"Bethlehem Catholic\" href=\"https:\/\/becahi.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bethlehem Catholic<\/a> boys and girls basketball, <a title=\"Allentown Central Catholic High School\" href=\"https:\/\/becahi.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Central Catholic<\/a> and Bangor boys basketball and <a title=\"Southern Lehigh High School\" href=\"https:\/\/www.slsd.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Southern Lehigh<\/a> girls basketball teams would not lose more than 10 regular season games, combined.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2.\u00a0 Biggest Roller Coaster of 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Keith<\/strong> \u2013 The\u00a0<a title=\"Philadelphia Eagles\" href=\"https:\/\/www.philadelphiaeagles.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philadelphia Eagles<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris<\/strong> \u2013 The <a title=\"Philadelphia Phillies\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/phillies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> and their top affiliates<\/p>\n<p><strong>3.\u00a0 Most Intriguing High School Sports Storyline<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Keith<\/strong> \u2013 What\u2019s going to happen with the new <a title=\"EE School\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ee-schools.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Executive Education Academy Charter School<\/a> in Allentown, which some feel is trying to become the <a title=\"Imhotep Charter School\" href=\"https:\/\/www.imhotephighschool.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Imhotep Charter <\/a>of the Lehigh Valley<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris<\/strong> &#8212; <a title=\"Freedom High School\" href=\"https:\/\/basdwpweb.beth.k12.pa.us\/freedom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Freedom<\/a>\u2019s elevation to winning SEVERAL titles this year (including baseball, boys soccer, girls tennis, girls basketball and football) despite not always getting the respect or the amount of media attention that some other districts receive after similar accomplishments.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4.\u00a0 Best &#8220;Bounce Back&#8221; Team\/Storyline<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Keith<\/strong> \u00a0\u2013 <a title=\"Northampton High School\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdschools.org\/nahs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northampton<\/a> sports underwent a revival in 2017 with the boys basketball team reaching the <a title=\"District XI\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdschools.org\/nahs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">District 11<\/a> finals for the first time in 45 years, the football team returning to the District 11 playoffs for the first time in more than a decade and other programs, like softball, also showing some spunk. One of the great mysteries in local sports has been why can\u2019t Northampton simulate the success of neighboring schools such as <a title=\"Nazareth High School\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasdschools.org\/nahs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nazareth<\/a> and <a title=\"Parkland High School\" href=\"https:\/\/phs.parklandsd.org\/\">Parkland<\/a>. This year, the K-Kids came back to life and while they didn\u2019t win championships they did become much more relevant than in the past<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris<\/strong> \u2013 <a title=\"Northern Lehigh \" href=\"http:\/\/schools.nlsd.org\/srhsnlsd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Northern Lehigh<\/a> Football team.\u00a0 The Bulldogs were dead last in the Lehigh Valley last year with very low numbers for their football program (24 dressed players when we did their <a title=\"Pen Argyl\" href=\"http:\/\/penargylschooldistrict.org\/penargyl\/HS\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pen Argyl<\/a> game a year ago).\u00a0 This year, they not only posted five regular season wins but made a run at a district playoff spot in the most competitive classification (3A) in District XI<\/p>\n<p><strong>5.\u00a0 Hardest Working Sports Personalities<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Keith<\/strong> \u00a0\u2013 All of the people who make the high school sports community special, from the custodians, to the ticket takers, to the concession stand workers, to the timers and scorekeepers and athletic directors and everyone involved. People who just watch the games on TV or attend them may never know how much effort goes into making each sports event a great community event that brings people together and provides a positive learning experience for our kids<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris<\/strong> \u2013 RCN Videographers Mike Kingsley and Alyssa Sheckler.\u00a0 Among all the hard-working people committed to local sports coverage in our studio, no two people worked more bizarre hours and make the kind of personal sacrifices they do to continue to shoot\/edit\/produce features for our \u201cSportsTalk\u201d program.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6.\u00a0 Best Team No One (or Hardly Anyone) Talked About<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Keith<\/strong> &#8212; The Parkland softball team. Because they were the last team alive in the 2017-18 school year, people were already in summertime mode and moving on with graduations, Senior Week trips and so on by the time the Trojans made it to the <a title=\"PIAA\" href=\"http:\/\/www.piaa.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PIAA<\/a> 6A finals late in the afternoon of June 15 at Penn State. They had a 3-0 lead late into the game, but couldn\u2019t hold on and lost to Hempfield 4-3 in eight innings. Parkland finished 24-4<\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris<\/strong> \u2013 Nazareth girls basketball program.\u00a0 One of the most consistently successful teams in the Lehigh Valley but have continued to be second banana for many years because of the lengthy state playoff runs by Central Catholic and more recently Bethlehem Catholic.\u00a0 Head Coach Rick Bickert does it with a constantly rotating composition of talent and players (one year he has four guards, the next year he has a ton of \u201cbigs\u201d)<\/p>\n<p><strong>7.\u00a0 2018 Will Be Remembered As . . .<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Keith<\/strong> &#8212; The year Philadelphia had two championship parades \u2013 the Eagles and <a title=\"Villanova\" href=\"https:\/\/www.villanovau.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Villanova<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Chris<\/strong> \u2013 The stories told by the coaches and players of the work they do OFF the court\/field.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been talking about it for years on our show, but I made a special effort this year to bring those schools in that do a TON of charity work in the community and I think it reached a lot more people for me to ask them specifically about that and to have the teams themselves telling those stories on \u201cSportsTalk,\u201d describing what they did in the community.\u00a0 Among those include Easton\u2019s boys &amp; girls cross country teams, Parkland boys and girls soccer teams, Freedom, Bell and Ballou football teams, and many others.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of RCN or any other agency, organization, employer or company.\u00a0 If you missed our \u201cYear-in-Review\u201d program on \u201cSportsTalk,\u201d here are a few more opinions from co-host Keith Groller and me (plus, you can hear&#8230;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"Yoast SEO Relevanssi index exclude","inline_featured_image":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-sportstalk-shop"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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