Feb 10, 2025
Alaina Dadzie of Loyalsock scores in the first few minutes of the game against Jersey Shore at Jersey Shore High School. Loyalsock won, 56-51. DAVE KENNEDY/Sun-Gazette
JERSEY SHORE –No one quite knew how Monday afternoon’s Loyalsock-Jersey Shore girls basketball game would transpire.
And that has nothing to do with who won and lost. The bigger question was if this event could come together well in front of the entire Jersey Shore student body.
Well, everyone involved answered with an emphatic yes. Not only was the basketball great as Loyalsock won a 56-51 thriller, but so was the atmosphere. The crowd was loud, but well-behaved and every basket each team scored was met with playoff-time reaction. As was the case when these rivals met last December in Loyalsock, the biggest winner here was girls’ basketball itself.
“We would like to thank the entire Jersey Shore administration and teachers for managing the whole thing,” Jersey Shore coach Mike Schall said. “We’d like to also thank the Loyalsock community for embracing it because that’s what we were trying to do, create a win for everybody in girls basketball.”
Consider that, mission accomplished.
Really, no matter who one views this game, it was a win-win for everyone involved. Both teams benefited from playing in front of a full house. The students won because they conducted themselves so well and both school districts won, showing they can pull off an event like this.
Other area schools have performed this task well with wrestling and the ability for Loyalsock and Jersey Shore to put together such a well-run, entertaining event could create more opportunities for teams and students going forward.
“Credit to Jersey Shore and I mean the whole school district because it’s a chore to put something like this together and I thought they knocked it out of the park,” Loyalsock coach Curtis Jacobson said. “The kids were great. The kids were respectful. We want to try and do things to build girls basketball, and Jersey Shore laid a really good foundation for schools to copy and to promote really good things.”
This game also prepared both teams well for the playoffs. No matter where they go, both Loyalsock and Jersey Shore will have the experience in playing in front of jammed gyms.
The bonus for Loyalsock is that nearly every spectator was cheering against it. Outside of Loyalsock parents, everyone was cheering for Jersey Shore. Loyalsock (21-1) will face outstanding teams the rest of the way but it likely will not be in a more hostile environment. Winning a game like it did Monday provides a nice boost after closing the regular season on a 13-game winning streak.
“They’re competitors. They’re kids that try to refuse to lose,” Jacobson said. “We know that losing is part of being an athlete and for them to take, regular-season wise, 22 best shots and to have one loss at the buzzer to a 5A school is a super compliment to our girls; a super compliment to my staff that really rides these girls and pushes these girls every single day. They embrace it.”
Jersey Shore does as well and also should take some momentum from this game. The Bulldogs thundered back after Loyalsock scored the game’s first 10 points and took a seven-point lead. It was a heavyweight-type battle played in front of a title fight kind of crowd and, win or lose, handling moments like those well are things which can help athletes in sports and in life.
Student-athletes wear a lot of hats and have a lot going on. It’s not easy putting the hours these players do, but events like Monday help make it all worthwhile. If other District 4 basketball schools want to follow suit and schedule events like these going forward, Jersey Shore and Loyalsock provided the perfect blue print.
“I’ve coached a lot of these kids since they were very young and always talk to them about putting the work in so people want to come out and see them and so they can play in front of packed gyms,” Schall said. “They earned the opportunity to play in championship environments the last couple years in some pretty full gyms. This gym was full and it’s as much a playoff environment as you can get and that’s what we were hoping for.”
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