No winners in case of PJP suspensions

In a realm that delivers nightly winners and losers, last Saturday didn’t meet its quota.

On Thursday, the Pope John Paul II girls basketball team pulled off an impressive win, defeating Owen J. Roberts in the Pioneer Athletic Conference quarterfinals. Celebrating in the aftermath on the team bus, team members videoed themselves singing along to a profane, racial slurfilled song, a video that made its way to social media.

A night later, a game into the postseason, Pope John Paul II administration suspended the entire team and first-year head coach TJ Lonergan for one game.

So as to not forfeit the semifinal, the suspensions from administration and the Archdiocese of Philadelphia were to be enforced on Feb. 9 or the “next scheduled game”, at the discretion of the coaching staff.

Feb. 9 marked the PAC semifinals against defending champion and state-ranked SpringFord; the next game a District 1 Class 5A playoff first round game on Feb. 19.

The former is a league tournament purely for local pride; the latter is a potential seasonending playoff game.

Competitively, it’s not hard to determine how a coaching staff would divvy out the pun

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On Sports

AUSTIN HERTZOG — MEDIANEWS GROUP Pope John Paul II’s Gianna Cagliola, right, fights for possession with Spring-ford’s Olivia Olsen.