Cedar Beach Showcase officially gets canceled
It is pretty much a forgone conclusion, but Cedar Beach Basketball Showcase director Glen Klein made it official on Friday: there will be no “Bash at the Beach’ for high school kids this summer.
The high school basketball tournament, originally scheduled for June, was considered an option later in the summer if COVID-19 conditions improved enough to lift restrictions. But they haven’t.
“We regretfully announce we will be unable to hold the Cedar Beach Basketball Showcase, also known as the Bash at the Beach, this year,” Klein said in a statement. “The uncertainty of COVID-19, the lack of indoor space for rainouts and the rims not being reinstalled at Cedar Beach, led to this difficult and disappointing decision. We would like to thank all of our sponsors, teams, coaches, players and fans for being patient while we tried to work through this difficult situation.”
Klein said he expects the tournament to be back “bigger and better” in 2021 and he looks forward to teams participating in the Cedar Beach summer league as well as the showcase.
Kyle Miller softball showcase
Another traditional event that has been taken off the local sports calendar is the
Kyle Miller Showcase for area travel-team softball programs. It was scheduled for Sept. 19-20 at the Lehigh
County Athletic Complex.
“The safety of the players, coaches, umpires and volunteers are paramount and was a big part of our decision,” said tournament director Charlotte Miller. “We look forward to planning an exciting 2021 showcase to celebrate our 25th year.”
Over the years, the showcase has given out more than 80 scholarships to area players and in honor of the 25th anniversary plans were to present 10 $500 scholarship winners.
Three all-star games next Memorial Day
While no one seems sure whether there be a full high school football season this fall, the Pennsylvania State Football Coaches Association is adding a third all-star game to Memorial Day weekend in 2021.
In an effort to get more kids a chance to compete in the game, the PSFCA has added a second East-West all-star and will have one for kids in the 4A to 6A classification and another for kids from 1A to 3A schools.
One of our biggest complaints was that the kids from the lower classes were getting left out of our All-Star game process, so we’re splitting the game into two editions.” said PSFCA executive director Garry Cathell. “Many coaches at smaller schools felt they couldn’t get their players into the all-star games.”
So, now there will be three games that weekend with the culmination being the annual Big 33 Classic between Pennsylvania and Maryland.
This year’s attempt at backto-back games on May 24-25 were canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. They were scheduled for Central Dauphin School District’s Landis Field at Speed Ebersole Stadium in Lower Paxton Township.
Pennsylvania’s Big 33 roster was set to include six Eastern Pennsylvania Conference players — Bethlehem Catholic’s Tavion Banks, Whitehall’s Ali Barkley, Nazareth’s Anthony Harris, Freedom’s
Kaden Moore and Jalen Stewart and Easton’s Patrick Shupp. Freedom’s Jason Roeder was selected as a member of the Pennsylvania coaching staff.
The East roster in the EastWest game featured Northwestern Lehigh’s Deven Bollinger, Bethlehem Catholic’s Jerry Lyons and George French and Nazareth’s Nathan Stefanik and Jake Wilson. Former Southern Lehigh coach John Toman and Pocono Mountain West’s Jim McCarroll were selected to the East staff.