Midstate Stars Shine Brightly At Hanna
> By Matt Maisel
> SUSQUEHANNA TWP --- Just when you thought high school basketballseason was over, guess again. On Friday night, Susquehanna Twp. High Schoolplayed host to the Pennsylvania Roundball Classic, an annual set of all-stargames that features the best seniors in the midstate area. The 'Classic'featured four sets of games on this night, all culminating into the MidPenn All Stars versus the Keystone All Stars.
When you first look at the rosters for this marquee matchup, one wouldprobably think heads would be flying rather than three's would be raining.Trinity's quick point guard Larry Kostelac and Susquehanna's sure-shot AdamSinoway...on the same team. These two, who went blow for blow four timesduring the regular season, and almost traded body shots, paired up underSusquehanna coach Todd McCall to take on All Stars from the York Area League...anddidn't dissapoint as Mid Penn went onto win 69-62. After Northeastern'sJustin Shelly led Keystone to a quick 8-2 lead, the Mid Penn guns arose.Jon Conner from Hershey, with chants of "C!" coming from the Trojanfaithful, hit two straight triples to put Mid Penn up 34-16 at halftime,all leading into the Slam Dunk contest. Northern's Ryan Hildebrand and BishopMcDevitt's Joe Thomas went dunk for dunk, each getting perfect scores inthe final round to put it into a sudden-death Dunk-Off. Hildebrand won itwith a Michael Jordan-esque dunk as he took off from the foul line and jammedit home with one hand.
"I only had two dunks during the season, both wide open layups,"said Hildebrand. "You always practice some in your backyard. It wasfun." Down eighteen points at the half, Keystone went on a run. LittlestownThunderbolt Paddy Lee led with his 11 points to cut the Mid Penn lead to50-46. And then the one person who nobody thought would have an impact inthis game did.
Harrisburg Cougar reserve Larry Burnett came out of his shell that spentmost of its time on the Cougar bench and erupted for two straight threepointers that sparked a 10-2 run and stopped the Keystone rally for good."Thats the most playing time I've had ever," said Burnett, whogot around 15 minutes. "I had a very nice time tonight."
In the day's opening game, the llhoops.org team defeated worldathlete.com78-60. A close 38-37 worldathlete.com lead at halftime disintegrated quicklywith llhoops.org runs of 9-0 and 12-0 throughout the half. Matt Fisher ofJersey Shore led the victors with 16 points and the Steelton duo of JoeWoodward and James Rogers combined to score 23 points.
The second game had the East and West All Stars going at it in an extremelyentertaning game with the West All Stars winning 102-77. The West team hit13three pointers and Mark Seidenberg of Cardinal Dougherty had a game-high17points.
Harrisburg's LaToya Bellamy-Hunter scored the first 10 points of thesecond half for her West All Star team as she and her 16 points led theWest to a 50-48 win over the East.