Each year, when we do our “SportsTalk: Year-in-Review” program, there are inevitably a few topics that, because of time limitations, we don’t get an opportunity to present on our show.

While Keith Groller and I had some great ‘back-and-forth’ for the topics we did get to debate during the show, there were once again a few topics that we didn’t get to address.

Today, we’d like to present some of these sports conversational pieces that didn’t make it on-air…

1. Hardest working group in sports? 

   KEITH — It has to be the RCN4 Cable crew. People have no idea how hard everybody works to set things up before a game and then has to tear it all down in a matter of minutes after a game ends

   ME – Local Girls basketball teams (on and off the court); there were a number of very hard working teams in the RCN viewing are that went deep into the state playoffs, and some great stories of local teams participating in charity events, for Cops ’ n ’ Kids, local food and homeless shelters and more.

2. Biggest Myth of 2017? 

   KEITH — That because we had one great basketball night at PPL that the District 11 basketball was going to automatically return there. The PPL Center has not made it affordable and have not afforded good dates for the district. You would have thought the PPL Center would welcome high school sporting events back with open arms. It hasn’t happened.

   ME – That the media is “out to get” the Catholic schools by looking for stories to make them look bad and/or avoid covering them in favor of public schools.

3. 2017 Will Be Remembered As the Year… 

   KEITH — That athletes and politics collided and depending on your viewpoints, you either treated the athletes as heroes for their stands or started to turn away from them.

   ME – A decided change in sports journalism and the ways sports are covered–in virtually every aspect.

4. Most Disappointing Administrative Decision in 2017? 

   KEITH — The PIAA and District 12 allowing a kid who played football all season in New Jersey come over and play for Conwell-Egan in a state quarterfinal against Palisades which created an uproar and put a spotlight on how unfair the system is when it comes to certain private and public schools.

   ME — Missing out on “teachable” moments…several examples around sports teams this year in where schools could do the right thing/create a very rich real life learning experience – but instead took the “safe” way out and washed their hands of an issue.

5. Toughest Coaching Challenge Heading into 2018? 

   KEITH— Locally, it’s whoever gets the Catty, CCHS and Northampton football jobs. All three programs were down in 2017 and Central in particular may face a difficult climb being back in the EPC South.  On a more national level, whoever gets the job coaching the New York Giants who turned into a complete mess under Ben McAdoo and now have to deal with a building juggernaut in Philadelphia.

   ME – Any one that plays Bethlehem Catholic girls basketball team – so well balanced, so well-coached and a very smart group of athletes… they are relentless defensively and very deep…it will be almost impossible for any Lehigh Valley team to beat them this season.

6. Local Sports Change You’d Like to See in 2018? 

   KEITH –I would like to see a local boys basketball state champion in Hershey. It happens all the time in wrestling and the girls have had their share, but it has been since 1986 with Central Catholic that we’ve had a local team get the gold in Hershey.

   ME — When one team is up by a large margin, play the bench players earlier than the last few seconds of a game. These kids work hard too and deserve a chance to play a little when an opportunity arises—especially when the team is on TV.

For more “year-in-review” comments and topics, make sure you watch the show on RCN On-Demand and our podcast, found here on the RCN-TV website!

First of all, props to Morning Call sports writer Steven Gross—not only did he recently get married and treat his new bride to an exclusive behind-the-scenes tour at Yankee Stadium (yes, she’s a die-hard pinstripe fan!), he captured the “Best of RCN-TV” award by receiving the most votes for our “SportsTalk” program during a contest held recently on our website.

To see Steve’s “winning” appearance from this past year, tune in to RCN-TV on January 1^st for the entire lineup of the top moments from our broadcasting schedule from this past calendar year!

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Speaking of holiday programming…

Morning Call Senior Sports Writer Keith Groller and I conducted our annual “Year-in-Review” show live last Thursday at 7pm on RCN-TV.

We’ve gotten quite a bit of feedback following the initial airing of the show and invite you to check out the show when it repeats again as part of the holiday’s special programming schedule coming up this week (check out the entire RCN-TV broadcast schedule over the next week here on the website).

Just to give you a little sample of what we talked about, here are a few “brief” responses to most of the topics we discussed on this program. Keep in mind, there was quite a bit of “cross-talk” and debate about a few of these issues, along with some interesting opinions and some “fun and games” we also had on the show, which we hope you will check out for yourself.

“Year-in-Review Topics for 2017”

1. Best collection of sophomores?

Keith:  How about Carson Wentz, Doug Pedersen and the entire Eagles coaching staff? After some first-year mistakes, this crew has definitely avoided any notion of a sophomore jinx.

Me:  Nazareth Football, a team I got to see five out of six weeks in a row this year—and boy did they never disappoint! Anthony Harris (one of several great 10-th grade QBs in the area), Nate Stefanik (who made the catch of the year at BASD setting up a big win), Kyle Paccio (an underrated running back in a pass-happy offense), Jake Wilson (probably the most underrated two-way lineman among any under classmen) and more.  Definitely a team to watch for next year.

2. 2017’s Sign the Sports Apocalypse was at hand?

Keith:  The Yankees firing Joe Girardi, who took the team within a win of the World Series and hiring Aaron Boone, who has no previous managerial experience

Me:  A parent attending a high school sports practice while watching a program (I “think” it was “The Walking Dead”) with the volume up while the coach was trying to teach his players

3. Biggest sports embarrassment?

Keith:  The US team failing to qualify for the World Cup

Me:  Chip Kelly’s hiring at UCLA…not necessarily the move itself but one of the comments from their President saying that Kelly would restore “respect” to the program (he’s replacing, Jim Mora, who was a classy guy, while Kelly was on probation while at Oregon, had some major PR issues and a checkered past with Philadelphia and San Francisco and wasn’t really “respected” as an analyst this past fall)

4. Worst story of 2017?

Keith:  The tragic way Roy Halladay died.

Me:  Continued issues of inappropriate hazing and multiple stories of disrespect between schools, including a few incidents when one football team ran out onto the field showing up another team—and one time an administrator got involved in the back-and-forth of school on Twitter

5. Favorite Lehigh Valley story?

Keith:  The two nights the PPL Center rocked with high school or college sports fans – the District 11 6A semifinals packing the place for basketball and the Lehigh-Penn State match bringing all the wrestling fans out.

Me:  All the LV state champions we had this past year on our “SportsTalk” show …the fact we had zero this fall shows how rare and how special it was to have so many during the ‘17 school year

6. Biggest “National” Question Mark of 2017?

Keith:  With the national anthem controversy taking hold and the continuing concerns about concussions and other major injuries, is the sport of football headed for a big dip in popularity – both from fans and participants

Me:  Phillies new manager and the “new direction of baseball”…trend is towards analytics and I love stats, but we’re losing the personality of baseball and some of the traditions of the sport (first time since 1970 the Phillies don’t have a former player on their coaching staff)

7. Most underrated sports program?

Keith:  Southern Lehigh

Me:  Northwestern Soccer is one of the single sports programs that gets overlooked the most. If you look district-wide and across all sports… Bangor comes in second

8. Most overrated team/personality?

Keith:  LaVar Ball. A poster boy for everything that’s wrong with sports parenting.

Me:  Roger Goodell…new deal/extension for over $25-million … acts like a czar one minute for things like over-inflating footballs by an ounce, then hides on other issues, including the awful brutality of NFL players against women

9. Most underrated head coach?

Keith:  Freedom football coach Jason Roeder

Me:  Joe Stellato/Joe Arndt/Eric Snider – all three have issues they had to overcome this past year, yet all are overly welcoming when I come to their practices and games, year after year

10. Best national sports story?

Keith:  The Houston Astros, just a couple of months after the city was ravaged by a hurricane, getting its first World Series title.

Me:  My answer to this was pretty descriptive and you really need to check out the show to hear my response to this in its entirety.

11. Nicest Sports Group of 2017?

Keith:  Tie between three groups. Enjoyed our shows with the state champs from Moravian Academy field hockey, CCHS volleyball and Becahi girls basketball – all great kids as well as well as great athletes.

Me:  Pen Argyl girls soccer. A great turnaround story that made the district playoffs for the first time in a long time.  They were a very classy group and great to speak with when our cameras were up at their place to do a story on them—and it certainly was nice of them to promote us on their social media pages this year as well!

For more “year-in-review” comments, topics and opinions, make sure you watch the show on RCN-TV, on RCN On-Demand and our podcast, found here on the RCN-TV website!

The high school basketball season just got underway and over the next few days, there are going to be some great stories produced by the local newspaper outlets with previews, predictions and pre-season layouts of which teams will finish in the top league and district playoff berths.

However, I have been following local basketball in this area for over two decades now and I don’t think I’ve ever seen as “cut-and-dry” season ahead for scholastic teams. So before we get to some more “less definite predictions” for the upcoming basketball season, let’s get a few of the “stone-cold” locks out of the way:

• Bethlehem Catholic will win at least two state titles this winter sports season
• The Becahi boys team will lose no more than three EPC regular season games all year
• The Becahi girls team will lose less than that—and may have only a handful of games decided by single digits
• The Southern Lehigh girls will have more competitive games this winter, yet still will win the Colonial League and District championship easily
• Bangor boys will again dominate the Colonial League
• Central Catholic will be very strong and play in both the EPC & District playoffs

Now that we have gotten the “easy” stuff out of the way, here are a few of the more intriguing storylines to watch unfold this winter sports season:

• Can Catty reach the playoffs?
• Both Boys Coach Eric Snyder and Girls Coach Ed Seidick are two of the nicest guys in the league, and they’ve been trying to build up their programs the last few years to either get to the playoffs (girls) or have any kind of post-season success (boys team). Both have some great talent and, of what I saw over the summer, the boys team will vie for a playoff spot (although improved shooting from the free throw line is a MUST) and I think the girls team could be an improved team in 2018.
• Whitehall will eventually have more success–despite graduating eight kidsHowever, their youth and development programs have been churning out some great young student athletes (I was very impressed speaking with them during the summer leagues—those interviews were posted here on our website) and I think that the Zephyrs will “add by subtraction for this year.” By year’s end, Whitehall almost certainly finishes this year more strongly than they finished last season.
• One of the best teams for the first 95% of last year’s regular season was Whitehall, in a year many Zephyrs fans claimed to have one of the greatest WHS teams of all time (and they’ve had some terrific ones over their illustrious history). However, the team seemed to become unglued heading into the last week of the regular season, and sustained one of the ugliest finishes in many Whitehall fans’ collective memory.
• Allentown Central Catholic girls team will be “back”
• The Central Catholic girls basketball program have put together some of the most impressive consecutive winning steaks (in terms of league/district titles) in the entire state and have the greatest track record among Lehigh Valley schools producing outstanding basketball players. Last year, thanks to the newly expanded playoff format, even a team with a sub-500 record could qualify, which included Central Catholic, and allowed their post-season playoff streak to continue. However, the Vikettes are playing with more confidence this year and I think they will be a legitimate playoff team this year and don’t rule out this team garnishing some individual honors among its players as well.
• Keep an eye out for the “Three Junior Patriots”
  
• Although it sounds like a failed suggestion for a 50’s trio musical group, the Patriots saw more and more contributions from their then-sophomore players (who were very impressive with their scrappy defense) a year ago, and look poised to be prime-time players this winter. Allen, Parkland, Emmaus, Liberty and Pocono Mountain West will be listed as the “6A” teams to beat, and not many people have Freedom on their radar this winter. But don’t be surprised if the Patriots go deeper into the playoffs this February and pull off a few “upsets” this season (and look for Easton to do the same).

Now, time to sit back and enjoy, what should be, a very competitive high school basketball season…and don’t forget to visit the RCN-TV schedule to check out our high school basketball broadcasts through January 31^st — now posted and available to view here on our website!

First, a quick plug to ask for your votes for the annual “Best of RCN” contest. I would be remiss in not partaking in some shameless promotion of our “RCN SportsTalk” programs to vote for. Among the finalist for the “SportsTalk” nominations include:

• Markelle Fultz’s H.S. Coach/Pro Baseball with Tom Housenick and Chuck Hixson – 6/20/17
• Phillies Mid-Season Update with Steve Gross – 7/20/17
• Eagles Camp/Former Coaches Show with Bob Stem & Bob Shriver – 8/3/17
• NFL/HS Football; MLB Pennant Race with Freddie Coleman & Steve Shiffert – 9/7/17
• Penn State/Ohio State Preview with Matt Millen – 10/26/17

Also, it’s almost time for the annual “SportsTalk” year-in-review show (not to be confused with the “Best of RCN” contest.)

Each year we toss out a variety of different topics to reflect upon for the previous 12 months, and we give our audience a chance to voice their opinion to our debate topics…something we’ll be doing on the next edition of the “SportsTalk” TV show.

So, if you’d like to weigh in on any of the following questions we’re posing—send us an email by this Thursday (12/14) at 7pm and we’ll read and respond to your email, along with Keith Groller & my own opinions to the following:

1. Best Collection of Sophomores?
2. Biggest Gripe About 2017?
3. Hardest Working Group in Sports?
4. Worst Story of 2017?
5. Favorite Lehigh Valley Story of 2017?
6. Biggest Local Question Mark of 2017?
7. Biggest National Question Mark of 2017?
8. Most Underrated Sports Program?
9. Most Overrated Team/Personality of 2017?
10. Most Underrated Head Coach?
11. Biggest Sports Embarrassment of 2017
12. 2017’s Sign the Sports Apocalypse is at Hand?
13. Best” National Story of 2017?
14. “Nicest” Sports Group of 2017?
15. Biggest Myth of 2017?
16. 2017 Will Be Remembered as the Year of…
17. Most Disappointing Administrative Decision?
18. Toughest Coaching Challenge for 2018?
19. Biggest “Question Mark” Going Into 2018?
20. Local Sports Thing You’d Like To See in 2018?
21. “Stone-Cold” Lock for 2018

Also, if you have an additional topic that you might like us to add to the list, email us at rcnsportstalk@rcn.com

The 2017 “Year-in-Review” show will be airing at multiple times around the holidays on RCN, in addition to being available on the different media platforms.

However, there’s only one chance to watch the show LIVE so you can voice your choice(s) and to interact with us about this year’s topics, so make sure you tune in this Thursday at 7pm on RCN-TV!

And…have a wonderful holiday season!!!

We’ve now reached the final week of the “state” round of the PIAA high school tournaments.

Best of luck to all remaining teams as they play in Hershey for the title of the top HS football teams in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, with the Bethlehem Catholic football team’s lost to Imhotep last weekend, the fall season has come to an end for all of the teams in the RCN viewing area—with no teams capturing a title this time around (we had a whopping three championship teams crowned last fall).

RCN-TV covered playoff games every week leading up to this week’s state championships (the finals, produced by the Pennsylvania Cable Network, can be seen on RCN Lehigh channel 97).

If you missed recent games seen on RCN over the last several weeks, here are sample highlights of our broadcasts (the entire games are available to watch, for free to RCN customers, through Video On Demand).

We also want to take a moment to honor the local cheering teams. These young ladies not only were out with our local football teams all season long, but had their own exhibition and competitive schedule this year. (Remember, cheering is now a sanctioned PIAA sport).

Also, a few more fall sports results and All-League mentions were announced recently.

Here are the results of Colonial League Cheering Championship…

2017 CL Cheerleading Competition Schedule

And, the final results of the District XI Tennis Doubles Tournaments for both Class 2A and 3A…

2017-18 District XI Girls Tennis- AA Doubles

2017-18 District XI Girls Tennis- AAA Doubles

Last but not least, the results from the Colonial League’s All-Star selection voting…

2017 Colonial League XC All League Selections

If you have a high school sports question or comment, you can participate on the next “SportsTalk” show by either calling in to our Thursday night show, or by emailing us at RCNsportstalk@rcn.com at any time.

Coming up on this week’s show and podcast, we’ll have beat writers from both the NFL and MLB on to talk about the stretch run of the football season and address baseball’s “Hot Stove League” rumors!

As we approach the end of the fall sports season (winter sports practices are now—officially—underway), it’s time once again to indentify some of the outstanding accomplishments and honors achieved by scholastic teams and student athletes in the RCN of Pennsylvania viewing area.

Below are more listings of top performers in the RCN coverage area—and make sure you check out recent editions and blog entries here at the “SportsTalk Shop” to see more of our local girls and boys athletes’ awards and standout performances.

The District XI Cross Country championships for both boys and girls program were held recently, involving a number of student-athletes from the RCN viewing area. Here are the results of the district tournaments:

AAA girls results
AAA girls team score
AAA boys results
AAA boys team score
AA girls team score
AA girls results
A girls team score
AA boys team score
AA boys results
A boys team score
A girls results
A boys results

Also, the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference announced its scholar athletes for the fall sports season:

Boys’ Cross Country:  Matt Bodon (Stroudsburg)

Girls’ Cross Country:  Emily Deschler (Central Catholic)

Field Hockey:  Morgan Mullen (Northampton)

Football: Gregory Bensley (Pocono Mountain West)

Golf: Thomas Munshower (Central Catholic)

Boys’ Soccer:  James Haag (Emmaus)

Girls’ Soccer: Sara Coyle (Pleasant Valley)

Girls’ Tennis: Molly Ehrig (Bethlehem Catholic)

Girls’ Volleyball:  Alix Buskirk (Whitehall)

Don’t forget, if you have a player, coach or team that you feel deserves recognition or is worthy of extra attention, don’t hesitate to pass that information along to me at rcnsportstalk@rcn.com and keep this email handy as we begin the transition to the winter sports season very shortly!

We are also coming upon our annual time to ask for the year’s best sports achievements in the RCN viewing area, so keep checking back to “The SportsTalk Shop” over the next few weeks to see how you can nominate and vote for your favorite teams, coaches, players and special moments during 2017.

Also, keep checking back to the RCN-TV website for holiday specials and unique marathons featuring the best of local programming in the month of December, leading up to a special New Year’s Day marathon!

We have completed District XI high school football season playoffs (a few winners from the RCN-TV coverage area were crowned last weekend).

There are a number of key matchups and interesting games to watch coming up as the PIAA playoffs unfold. Be sure to check out the broadcast schedule as it becomes available each week here on the RCN-TV website to see which playoff match-ups we’ll be broadcasting each weekend!

Here are highlights recapping the last few weeks of the high school football as seen on RCN-TV (the games are available to watch in its entirety, for free to RCN customers, through Video On Demand).

Check back to the “SportsTalk” shop over the next couple weeks for video highlights from RCN-TV’s broadcasts of our state high school football coverage!

Also, if you have a high school sports question or comment, you can participate on the next “SportsTalk” show by emailing us at RCNsportstalk@rcn.com at any time.

And … for a special Thanksgiving Day treat, join us for a recorded program this Thursday at 7pm as our special guests will be long-time football coaches Bob Stem and Bob Shriver, as they share memories of past Thanksgiving Day football games, the big Easton/Phillipsburg rivalry and many more local sports thoughts.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

As I try to point out on a regular basis, there are some tremendous sports accomplishments that don’t get as much notoriety as the more “popular” sports (given attendance figures), such as football, basketball and wrestling.

Last month, I put a call out here at the “SportsTalk Shop” for local athletic directors, coaches and school administrators to pass along special accomplishments for us to highlight and let other people know about. Since that time, I’ve gotten a steady stream of lists, accomplishments, honors and highlights of local athletes from local athletic directors looking to get the word out about these special student-athletes.

Below are more listings of top performers in the RCN coverage area—and make sure you check out recent editions and blog entries here at the “SportsTalk Shop” to see more of our local girls and boys athletes’ awards and standout performances.

First, here are this fall’s Colonial League Girls Volleyball All-Star team members…

2017-18 Colonial League Girls Volleyball All-League Team

Here are the results of the District XI tennis championship results for both the “AA” and the “AAA” classifications for schools in our Lehigh Valley coverage area…

2017-18 District XI Girls Tennis- AA Singles

2017-18 District XI Girls Tennis- AAA Singles

The Eastern Pennsylvania Conference’s golf season has come to an end. Here are the results of the EPC championships…

2017 EPC Golf Results & All-Conference

Last but not least, here are the results from the Colonial League Cross Country Championships…

CL XC Scores & Results 2017

If you have a player, coach or team that you feel deserves recognition or is worthy of extra attention, don’t hesitate to pass that information along to me at rcnsportstalk@rcn.com.

Coming up on this week’s “SportsTalk” show on RCN-TV, we’ll preview this weekend’s big Lafayette/Lehigh football match-up (that will be broadcast on RCN-TV Saturday, live at 12:30pm) along with talking with high school football writers in both the Pennsylvania and Washington DC markets, recapping last weekend’s games and previewing this weekend’s playoff action.

In case you missed our last “RCN SportsTalk” show, we chatted with the head coach of the George Washington University men’s basketball team, Maurice Joseph. We had the pleasure of talking with him about his Colonials pre-season workouts, his thoughts on the upcoming season, as well as his outlook for the Atlantic-10 Conference.

Joseph did an incredible job in his first year as GW’s head coach—with very little “adjustment” time to the position. The Colonials finished just three games back of the top four spots in the Atlantic-10 Conference last season. With a ton of young talent brought in by Joseph over this year, including Mount Carmel product Terry Nolan among the exciting newcomers on the roster, look for GW to be more athletic—and aggressive—at both ends of the floor this year.

The Colonials open up the season this Friday at the Smith Center against Howard University. Look for a lot of exciting moments on the court this year with Coach Joseph back again at the helm!

You can hear more from our interview with Coach Joseph’s and his college basketball thoughts by checking out “SportsTalk” through RCN On-Demand.

We also had a chance on “SportsTalk” to talk with Fox Sports’ Football Analyst Matt Millen to discuss a variety of college football issues, including his thoughts on the immediate future of Penn State running back (and Heisman Trophy nominee) Saquon Barkley.

The podcast of Millen’s interview addressing many other college football topics is available at rcn.com/atvn/sports-talk

We’ve reached the end of the high school football regular season and RCN-TV has some exciting playoff games selected to broadcast over the next several weeks.

Here are highlights recapping the last few games seen on RCN-TV (the games are available to watch in its entirety, for free to RCN customers, through Video On Demand).

If you have a high school sports question or comment, you can participate on the next “SportsTalk” show by either calling in to our Thursday night live show at 7pm, or by emailing us at RCNsportstalk@rcn.com at any time.

A few weeks back, I put a call out here at the “SportsTalk Shop” for local athletic directors, coaches and school administrators to pass along special accomplishments for us to highlight and let other people know about.

As always, I received quite a bit of feedback!

First, here is the rundown for the boys and girls Colonials League’s Cross Country athletes best times, scores and final results…

2017 EPC Cross Country Results and All-Conference

Secondly, here is the listing for the Fall 2017 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference’s Girls Volleyball All-Conference Team members…

2017 EPC Girls Volleyball Allstar results

Next, we have the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference’s All-Star team members for girls’ soccer…

EPC GSoc AllStar Press Release 2017

…as well as for the boys…

EPC BSoc AllStar Press Release 2017

If you have a player, coach or team who you feel deserves recognition or is worthy of extra attention, don’t hesitate to pass that information along to me at rcnsportstalk@rcn.com.

I ask that this week’s blog title be labeled as “part 1” so I am hoping more local coaches and administrators continue to send information for the other sports in the RCN coverage area—so that we can present even more athletes’ accomplishments and highlights once again in a couple weeks here at the “SportsTalk Shop”

Until then, best of luck to all our local athletes participating in their respective sports’ post-season activities,