Panther Valley basketball win lifts district’s spirits

At times there seems to be little more than gloom and doom that comes out of the Panther Valley School District as it struggles to keep pace with its better-financed neighbors, constant underfunding, excessive staff turnover, a do-more-with-less mentality and now the search for a new superintendent.

During the past several years, I have written about some of these depressing issues, along with the prospects that unless there is a tooth fairy out there somewhere things are not going to get much better in the long run.

That’s why it’s a joyous occasion that the Panther Valley Boys’ Basketball team won the District 11, Class 3A championship on Saturday. Not that this achievement will solve any of the district’s long-standing issues, but it is a badly needed morale-booster.

It was exciting to see the fire companies of the four district communities — Coaldale, Lansford, Nesquehoning and Summit Hill — lead the bus containing the players along an impromptu parade route throughout the four boroughs. The players’ families and residents joined the celebration and announced the achievement with sirens blaring and horns honking.

On paper, the Panthers with a 12-11 record were decided underdogs next to the second-seeded Notre Dame of Green Pond Crusaders, who came into the title game with an 18-7 record. An area newspaper predicted that Notre Dame would win by 11 points. As it turned out, Panther Valley, featuring a tenacious defense, turned the tables on the Crusaders, 59-53.

As we have seen time and time again, games and other athletic contests are not played on paper, and it is a tribute to the resiliency of the human spirit when competitors reach within themselves to counteract the “we probably won’t win this one” mentality.

After all, you wouldn’t blame a team from Panther Valley to be gun shy about traveling to take on a Lehigh Valley squad. Over the years, the results between teams from these two regions have not been pretty, but, as the Panthers proved on Saturday, past does not always predict the future.

To put this achievement into its proper context, this is the boys’ team’s first district title in 34 years. Put another way, Head Coach Patrick Crampsie was 10 years old the last time Panther Valley won the district crown. It was the year of the Challenger space disaster, when Mike Tyson won the heavyweight boxing title, and “The Oprah Winfrey Show” went on the air.

As impressive as this win was, what the fourth-seeded Panthers did several days earlier was equally if not more startling. They took down number one seed Palmerton, 66-59, with a furious comeback after trailing by 16 points several times in the third quarter. Panther Valley had a 13-4 run in the third to announce the comeback, then polished off the heavily favored Blue Bombers by outscoring them 25-12 in the fourth quarter.

Panther Valley had barely made a blip during its regular season play in the North Schuylkill League, winding up with a 4-10 record and losing its last four league games of the regular season before its reincarnation against Palmerton.

Here again, without momentum coming out of its league play finales, the team could have taken the attitude that its chances in the playoffs without “big mo” at its side would be minimal at best.

Add to this that the Panthers were almost invisible in state rankings coming in at number 378 in Pennsylvania and 10,254th nationally. Look for those numbers to improve when the latest figures are posted this week.

The word “character” is thrown around indiscriminately in sports, but, in this case, the term is more than warranted and has been earned by this team. Coach Crampsie said that his squad fights through everything. “Keep swinging,” he urged them during their gutsy postseason play.

The Panthers will take on Murrell Dobbins High School of Philadelphia, District 12’s fifth-seeded team, when the state tournament begins March 7. Dobbins has had its own challenges with a mediocre season, finishing 11-13 overall and 5-6 in its conference. Its state ranking is even lower than Panther Valley’s, coming in at 425th and a national ranking of 11,447th.

Regardless of what happens in the state playoffs, the Panthers will have this satisfying moment to cherish for the rest of their lives, and their fans and the district’s residents can deposit this moment of happiness, pride and accomplishment into their memory banks, too.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com