Allen out of Summer League playoffs

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Allen threw me a curveball tonight, and it was better than the ones Roy Oswalt will throw for the Phillies.

Since when did the Phillies become the Yankees of the National League, by the way?

I had written a column for the paper talking about Allen participating in the Tournament of Champions at Catasauqua next week and I wrote that the Canaries could be looking at a scheduling conflict on Tuesday night because I thought there was a great chance that they could be in the summer league final at Cedar Beach while also playing in a quarterfinal game in the TOC.

I will be honest. After seeing Dieruff struggle in both the Stellar and SportsFest tournaments, I really didn't think they would be within 15 points of Allen in the quarterfinals. So, I was confident that I wouldn't have to change what I wrote in my column.

But there's always great uncertainty when it comes to summer basketball. The biggest uncertainty is who's going to show up on a given night and I have been told that Allen was missing many of its key players due to another AAU event.

So, sadly for their many fans, it was bye-bye birdies. And sadly for me, I had to scramble near deadline to change my column around and take out that potential schedule conflict on Tuesday night.

Allen was upset by Dieruff and the Canaries' bid to win three high school titles in one summer is now over.

You now have a greaet chance of all Bethlehem final between Liberty and Freedom.

Liberty, last year's summer league champ, will be a heavy favorite in tonight's semis against Bangor and Freedom will be favored against Dieruff. Give the Slaters credit, though, for a solid win over an Emmaus team that had been impressive in both tournaments.

The Hurricanes must have been very impressive, too, especially defensively in a 47-18 rout of Bethlehem Catholic.

Here are Thursday's scores and tonight's matchups courtesy of John Hrebik:

Here are the results of the first night of the Allentown Varsity Boys Basketball League:



Freedom 62, Faith Christian 46



Liberty 47, Becahi 18



Dieruff 52, Allen 47



Bangor 53, Emmaus 42





Friday's Semifinal Matchups:



6:15 --------------- Liberty vs. Bangor



7:15 --------------- Freedom vs. Dieruff

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