Before we continue our latest “round” of all-star listings for teams in the ATVN area in the Lehigh Valley, just a quick word for our high school sports fans about the past week of sports programming, as I have gotten quite a few inquiries about our schedule last week.
As our audience knows COVID-19 has affected all aspects of life, and our winter schedule has not been immune. ATVN has a commitment to Lafayette College to broadcast a specific number of events. A number of previously scheduled games from November and December were moved to January, only to have many of them postponed again for a later date.
Several of those postponed events were all made up last week, with five Leopards’ games in six days. As a result, we only had three scholastic events, but all were good ones!
On Tuesday, we featured the high-flying Hawks from Bethlehem Catholic–they haven’t lost a league game since December–played their city rivals from Liberty, who had scored a few exciting upset wins this year.
On Friday, we had two of the top District XI 6A schools in the area. Parkland, a team that just knocked off the state champions from Central Catholic, took on the biggest positive surprise team in our coverage area this winter, Emmaus, on Friday night.
On Saturday, we featured the top wrestlers in the nation as ATVN brought you the District XI 3A Wrestling Team Championships.
It was a hectic week of sports programming–one we hoped you enjoyed (and Astound customers can watch again for free On-Demand)!
And…we’ll be resuming a full slate of high school broadcasts starting with the EPC basketball semifinals. Make sure you tune in and bookmark the new Astound TV Network schedule for updates on our sports programming!

Now, it’s time to honor the outstanding student-athletes in girls tennis & volleyball in the Eastern Pennsylvania conference for girls tennis and volleyball.

First Team:

Second Team:

Third Team:

For Doubles:

First Team:

Second Team:

Third Team:

And for volleyball: 

EPC Girls Volleyball First Team All-Conference:

EPC Most Valuable Player: Brynn Dreisbach, Parkland

EPC Second Team All-Conference:

EPC Third Team All-Conference:

We will also have some exciting news concerning our local sports coverage at ATVN…you’ll have to check back to The SportsTalk Shop next week to find out what it is!

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.

Last week, we changed things up a bit on ATVN.
For the first time to the best of my recollection, we opened up our coverage of the District XI playoffs with four of our first five games featuring the girls basketball teams in our viewing area.
I appreciated quite a few positive responses I received from parents about us featuring the girls programs last week, including many young ladies playing on television for the first time in their lives.
There were quite a few noteworthy accomplishments in the games we broadcast. Liberty was making its first playoff appearance in six years and Executive Charter was playing in its first ever post-season contest. We also showcased Notre Dame for the first time in a few years and the Emmaus girls team made its first appearance on our network in eight winter basketball seasons.
We will have a bunch of both boys and girls high school playoff games coming up over the next several weeks on ATVN. Make sure you bookmark our scholastic sports broadcast schedule and check out all the playoff action coming up over the next several weeks.
Also, we are working very hard on an expansion of our girls high school sports coverage on ATVN. We will have some exciting news for you about this, but you’ll have to wait a few weeks for the official details. Keep checking back to the SportsTalk Shop to find out more.
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Now, it’s time to honor the outstanding student-athletes in girls tennis & volleyball in the Eastern Pennsylvania conference for girls tennis and volleyball.

Singles/First Team
Paras Briegel, Stroudsburg
Erin Joo, Parkland
Sabrina Yurconic, Allentown Central Catholic
Ellyana Jacobs, Easton

Second Team
Cara Magliochetti, Bethlehem Catholic
Jocelyn Chow, Emmaus
Leah Zolotareva, Parkland

Third Team
Isabella Szmodis, Freedom
Shelby Carter, Emmaus
Taylor Adams, Bethlehem Catholic
Gigi Leonzi, Parkland

Doubles/First Team
Anshika Gupta/Kaila Miles, Parkland
Indira Tatikola/Teya Gougoustamos, Emmaus
Alison Willis/Katie Hoske, Stroudsburg

Second Team
Patty Superka/Grace Hartman, Bethlehem Catholic
Elise Kney/Hermani Patel, Liberty
Julia Ressler/Samantha Wallitsch, Easton

Third Team
Kara Wang/Catherine Grub, Allentown Central Catholic
Emma Ricci/Mackenzie Shoup, Nazareth
Payton McGlory/Liza Puerholz, Emmaus

EPC Girls Volleyball First Team
Brynn Dreisbach, PARKLAND
Alaina Roman, FREEDOM
MacKenzy Ruggiero, BETHLEHEM CATHOLIC
Samantha Simmers, FREEDOM
Elena Pursell, PARKLAND
Ava Holden, EMMAUS
Scarlett Jago, PARKLAND

Second Team All-Conference
Elizabeth Barnes, FREEDOM
Sydney Houchens, LIBERTY
Emily Harclerode, NAZARETH
Maren McGuire,ALLENTOWN CENTRAL CATHOLIC
Maggie Smith, PARKLAND
Brylee Tereska, LIBERTY
Courtney Shire, LIBERTY

Third Team All-Conference
Mia Pickering, EMMAUS
Sydney Esquieres, PARKLAND
Abigail Schweitzer, EMMAUS
Megan Holland, NAZARETH
Kyla Rodriguez, BETHLEHEM CATHOLIC
Alexa Crum, WHITEHALL

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.

One of my goals as sports director is to have as much balance as possible in our coverage of scholastic games on ATVN. It’s always a difficult concept to be fair and have an equal amount of schools represented while also bringing our audience quality games night in and night out. It’s a challenge I have enjoyed when scheduling guests for the last 18 years on our SportsTalk program.
Another objective this season was to showcase more Colonial League teams, as there were times in the past in which we only featured a couple of those schools the entire calendar year.
Unfortunately, this past year was probably the most challenging year — by far — in trying to achieve balance. It became impossible to have a “normal” schedule with constant and, at times, daily changes, altering what might have been some well-thought out plans.
Nevertheless it continues to be a goal of mine for this year and all seasons going forward to work around whatever hurdles may be thrown at us, achieving as balanced a broadcast schedule as possible.
To that end, I want to hold myself accountable and consistently reflect on how many teams we were able to feature while simultaneously giving our general audiences the best games of the night every time our production trucks roll out.
Before we take a look at the numbers heading into the winter postseason, a few notes…
Many schools had just plain bad luck in scheduling games this season and that spilled over to our coverage schedule. For some schools multiple games (and broadcasts) were canceled. We tried very hard to reschedule them on at a future date, if it was possible.
Also, there are always schools that actually prefer not to be on television in a given year. Most programs go through some sort of rebuilding or retooling process and, in the best interest of the students, we may not broadcast a team when / if they’re going through a rough patch or facing other issues that they don’t want enhanced by having their games broadcast.
A few other factors…
Many schools over the last year and a half now choose to play teams outside of our viewing area in various sports. This not only reduces our opportunity to feature teams by half (instead of featuring two teams at once, we can only spotlight one team in our coverage area). Also, exactly half of these games are played a significant distance away from our area, which further complicates scheduling.
Additionally, teams that have great success in a given year will be featured more times than others – due to their playing other competitive schools in our viewing area (m). The fact that playoff-bound teams’ seasons may extend by as much as seven weeks longer than other schools gives them more opportunities to have their games broadcast. To support that point, eight of the first nine schools listed below all qualified for the postseason in football, basketball AND wrestling.
There are numerous other factors that affect and alter our schedule which we won’t mention for now. Instead, let’s add up the numbers for the top eleven schools most often featured in our coverage and see where we are currently heading into the playoffs…with a few months left to go in the scholastic sports year.

Freedom – 10
Nazareth – 10
Parkland – 9
Northampton – 8
Easton – 8
Emmaus – 8
Central Catholic – 8
Bethlehem Catholic – 8
Liberty – 7
Whitehall – 6
William Allen – 5

Additionally, we have been able to broadcast no less than 15 Colonial League football/wrestling/basketball teams so far this year (the reason for the odd number is because Northern Lehigh played a state playoff game against a squad outside our viewing area). We’ll be adding two more of these schools to this category later this week (see the “coming up” listing of district playoff schedules here on our website).
While the numbers are not perfect and we will continue to be as fair to all schools as possible, I do think we did our best balancing competitive games (and constant scheduling changes) with trying to showcase as many teams as we can.
My thanks to the entire Astound TV Network sports staff for not only outstanding quality work but also showing an amazing amount of flexibility in trying to feature as many teams in our coverage area as we possibly could.
Now, it’s time to start our extra busy season with the winter sports district playoffs commencing this week (five high school basketball games, plus the District XI wrestling championships and Lehigh/Lafayette college basketball over the next few days alone!)
Be sure to bookmark and check back to our website for our schedule of winter postseason action over the next month and a half.

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.

By now you’ve noticed many changes to our company’s name and television network, but our evolution is continuing to grow with our on-air staff additions!
A few months back we introduced Megan Kane — one of four new broadcasters added to our sports team this past fall — to do color commentary for the high school basketball season. An accomplished scholastic and collegiate coach, Megan made history when she became the first female broadcaster to announce a boys’ basketball game in the Lehigh Valley this winter.
As a coach, she had the reputation of having one of the most prepared teams for each game among any schools in the Eastern Pennsylvania region. In working with her over the last few weeks preparing for the upcoming high school season and broadcasting our first few games, I can tell you she has been just as diligent in doing her homework and getting ready for our broadcasts on ATVN this winter.
Also last fall, we introduced Meagan Caffrey as the first female football sideline reporter in our network’s history, who continued to do work for the Lafayette Sports Network this winter.
But Megan and Meagan are not the only new announcers handling the ATVN microphones going forward, as we have now added additional three commentators to our on-air sports team.
Brittany Thomas was one of three one-thousand point scorers in one of the greatest basketball dynasties in the rich history of Catasauqua High School athletics. Her teams reached the state playoffs all four of her years with the Rough Riders. After playing in college at East Stroudsburg, she returned to coach at her alma mater, before accepting an assistant coaching position with Muhlenberg College.
I’ve had the honor to interview her at different stops over her tremendous career and always agreed when her coaches described her as having a high basketball IQ. Now, our ATVN audience can experience her wisdom on our broadcasts. Thomas will be making her debut this week as we will have no less than eight high school basketball games coming your way!
Last year, Erik Schmitt was announced as the new baseball coach at Whitehall High School and, in doing so, became the first minority to coach one of the four “major” sports in their school district.
In my 17 years as the station’s “SportsTalk” show host, very few people brought the passion and love of the game more than Eric has in his multiple appearances on the program. Eric will take the reins as the primary color analyst for our Blue Mountain League baseball “game of the week” this year. I look forward to Eric’s valuable insights as a former BML coach and player with the league and his thoughts on the current, local baseball players.
He had an excellent run as a player for the Martin’s Creek baseball team and became the youngest manager in the league, reaching the finals several times before he stepped away from the BML last year to devote more time to coaching at the high school level.
Last but not least, former Major League Baseball player Matt McBride will be joining us for our high school baseball broadcasts this spring.
McBride was drafted by the Cleveland Indians and played for the Colorado Rockies and Oakland Athletics. After several seasons, he signed with the Philadelphia Phillies organization and played for their Triple-A affiliate for three years before retiring. Always a great interviewee, Matt was excited for the opportunity to share his unique baseball background and experiences with us on our broadcasts and is looking forward to joining our ATVN sports family.

Please join me in welcoming these new voices to ATVN. I know our audience will appreciate their experience, wisdom with their respective sports experiences and unique insights when they tune into our broadcasts.
We are also hoping to add even more new on-air announcers over the next several months, along with a new internship position featuring someone looking to be in front of the camera.
We have always had crew positions available for internships in both the spring and fall semesters. However, I am hoping we can add to our work in the community by adding an “on camera” reporting and announcing position to help young people get a foot in the door of the communications field and bridge the gap into this wonderful industry.
I have spent the last several months reaching out to colleges both inside and outside of our viewing areas but am always looking to expand our program and contact as many schools as possible.
If you are interested or know of colleges or trade schools which participate in broadcasting internship programs, feel free to email me their contact information.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Astound Broadband or any other agency, organization, employer or company.

Last week we started honoring the student-athletes who were named to “all-star” teams for either league, district or state-wide honors.
This week, we will feature the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference all-league members for golf, as well as boys and girls cross-country teams.
PLEASE NOTE: the Colonial League decided as an organization a few years ago to NOT identify individual standout performers for certain sports and no longer produce “all league” teams. That is the schools’ decision and therefore, that is why teams from that league are not represented below.

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2021 EPC Cross Country All-Stars

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For boys and girls golf…

EPC Most Valuable Player (Male): Matt Vital, Liberty
EPC Most Valuable Player (Female): Everlyn Wong, Emmaus

EPC Golf First Team All-Conference:

EPC Golf Second Team All-Conference:

EPC Golf Third Team All-Conference:

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As always, we welcome anyone to share postseason accolades and accomplishments to us to share here at The Shop and on our “SportsTalk” program on ATVN.
Also, special thanks to our marketing team for taking the time to post these honors during one of the busiest times of the year!

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.

With so much going on locally of a more negative nature (i.e., scheduling changes, recruitment issues, officials shortages, et al), it’s important to take time to focus on the positive contributions of our student-athletes!
We periodically like to honor the young people who were recognized by their league, district of state-wide honors and named to “all-star” teams. We appreciate the sports chairs, athletic directors, administrators and even parents and the players themselves sharing that information with us and welcome anyone to share students’ accolades with us from throughout our ATVN viewing area.
This week, we focus on the scholastic gridiron to recognize those who received post-season honors. We hope you check back to The Shop next week as we continue highlighting boys and girls sports receiving accolades.

*****

FIRST TEAM 

SECOND TEAM 

OFFENSIVE MVP: Bobby McClosky

DEFENSIVE MVP: Caden Reph

*****

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.

Before we take a look at highlights of recent games broadcast on RCN-TV, a few observations on what has been an interesting start to the winter 2022 sports season in our viewing area.
Of our first five broadcasts for the winter season, three of the games’ outcomes have been decided by a COMBINED total of nine points, including last Friday’s broadcast featuring a thrilling victory by the defending state champion, Central Catholic basketball team. The fourth game was a five-point contest with less than two minutes left in the game.
With the exception of Parkland’s size being a little too much for Allen to handle, we’ve seen some very competitive games on RCN-TV to start this winter. We are very excited and remain optimistic on bringing you more great match-ups on the horizon.
As most people know, the big challenge high schools are facing right now is keeping everyone healthy while trying to get on the court. Easton High School, for example, is already five games behind other schools in terms of games played due to health issues, and just lost another game last Friday due to the snow storm.
Unlike last year when COVID protocols allowed for flexible scheduling, a team like the Red Rovers are going to be playing a TON of games over the next few weeks in order to get caught up to other schools, just to complete district requirements and have a chance at postseason action.
Our friends at Lafayette College have had an even more arduous time trying to play this season. Although we are less than a week away from the midpoint of the collegiate season, the Leopards have played ZERO league games so far, and our RCN/LSN crew is still waiting to broadcast our first game of the winter season.
Everyone’s health remains a priority – as it should be. But with COVID numbers currently on the rise, collegiate and scholastic administrators will continue to be tested and a rollercoaster type of season will not level off anytime soon this winter.

Now, here’s highlights of our recent high school broadcasts on RCN-TV.

1. RCN Sports: Southern Col. vs. Northern Lehigh (12/21)
https://youtu.be/P2fyMiwMuKk
2. RCN Sports: Dieruff vs. Easton (12/21)
https://youtu.be/8IraCae4jN4
3. RCN Sports: Northampton vs. Liberty (12/21)
https://youtu.be/_o7kyTicbPw
4. RCN Sports: Catasauqua vs. Northern Lehigh (12/21)
https://youtu.be/Dxo9yUVtlUI
5. RCN Sports: Allen vs. Parkland (12/21)
https://youtu.be/Fb4y9lHscGM

All of these games will be available to watch for free for RCN customers through RCN On-Demand for two months. DVD copies are available to be purchased when you call 610-443-2909!
Also…be on the lookout for some big news coming to our website and RCN-TV very soon!

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.

First of all, we hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and your new year is off to a great start!

There’s lots of exciting things happening within the RCN family…new faces, different approaches and other news that we will be unveiling soon, so keep checking back to “The Shop” so you don’t miss any of the surprises and changes occurring over the upcoming weeks.

Secondly, we have some highlights from the last few weeks of the high school football season, along with our first look at highlights from broadcasts of our first wrestling matches and basketball games of the new season.

Here’s a look…

RCN Sports: Northampton vs. Freedom (11/21)
https://youtu.be/rj1DdRthtLQ

RCN Sports: Parkland vs. Emmaus (11/21)
https://youtu.be/TnuQkSCpJlQ

RCN Sports: Freedom vs. St. Joseph’s Prep (11/21)
https://youtu.be/VakjiyFQVIM

RCN Sports: Emmaus vs. Freedom (11/21)
https://youtu.be/ssznMJ2eGlw

RCN Sports: West Catholic vs. Northern Lehigh (11/21)
https://youtu.be/t36mQGDqsuM

All of these games are still available for free for RCN customers through RCN On-Demand and DVD copies are available by calling 610-443-2909 during normal business hours!

Remember to check back to our website over the next few weeks for some exciting news concerning RCN and our sports coverage!

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.

It was another unique fall sports season!
As we continue to reflect back on this past year, we saw two more Lehigh Valley teams win state championships (Emmaus field hockey, Central Catholic girls soccer) and several individuals do well in golf, tennis and cross country. We actually had less teams than normal advance to the state playoffs in football, but were represented well with several impressive showings from Freedom and Northern Lehigh.
There’s also a bunch of talented players coming back and squads like Emmaus, Nazareth, Notre-Dame (to name a few) should be fun to watch in 2022.
Now, here’s part three of our look back at the best plays and highlights of this past season for games we broadcast on RCN-TV…

RCN Sports: Freedom vs. Liberty (10/21)
https://youtu.be/gxMt9sLXQLs

RCN Sports: Easton vs. Emmaus (10/21)
https://youtu.be/1cdK82N2j3A

RCN Sports: Polo (10/21)
https://youtu.be/hMKfxc5dySA

RCN Sports: Easton vs. Freedom (11/21)
https://youtu.be/efchTzUSTTk

RCN Sports:Nazareth vs. Emmaus (11/21
https://youtu.be/K9-csJIKo_w

RCN Sports: Notre Dame vs. Jim Thorpe (11/21)
https://youtu.be/RjL4137zsy0

Don’t forget, RCN customers can still watch many of these games–for free–at any time by visiting our Video On Demand platform. In addition to viewing these games, you can also purchase DVD copies of all of our sports productions and studio shows by calling (610) 443-2909.
Happy holidays everyone!

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.

Last week we started our annual recap of the top plays from this past high school football season.
Before we continue that trip through the best highlights of 2021, a quick reminder that RCN customers can still watch many of these games–for free–at any time by visiting our Video On Demand platform.
In addition to viewing these games, you can also purchase DVD copies of all of our sports productions and studio shows by calling (610) 443-2909.
Now, here’s part two of our look back at the best plays and highlights of this past season for games we broadcast on RCN-TV.

RCN Sports: Catasauqua vs. Pine Grove (10/21)
https://youtu.be/08ZNrpC77rk

RCN Sports: Freedom vs. Bethlehem Catholic High School (10/21)
https://youtu.be/lBNQOXSJVE8

RCN Sports: Whitehall vs. Freedom (10/21)
https://youtu.be/NasLQp3RPzk

RCN Sports: Easton vs. Nazareth (10/21)
https://youtu.be/XZIQwbycvHo

RCN Sports: Emmaus vs. Parkland (10/21)
https://youtu.be/EGKtbtms-Fs

RCN Sports Whitehall vs. Liberty (10/21)
https://youtu.be/0TRFeSu8MKw

RCN Sports: Parkland vs. Freedom (10/21)
https://youtu.be/688MVhW3q18

Check back next week for more samples of the best plays from this past high school football season, along with some final thoughts on the season gone by!

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.