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There will be summer basketball this year at Lakemont Park.
Those words were uttered on Monday evening by Skip Dry, the longtime Lakemont Park Summer Basketball League director, who said that, for a 51sth straight year, summer hoops will be played in Blair County. The league is set to open play on Monday, June 15.
"We will have all the teams and rosters by this Friday," said Dry, who ran the league when it was at Mansion Park before moving to Lakemont Park in 2019. "This Friday at Lakemont Park at 5 p.m., we will have a meeting for all the team captains from the adult league, the high school league and the junior high league."
According to Dry, there will be a total of 53 teams this summer. There are 30 adult teams, 16 high school teams, and for the second year in a row, there will be a junior high division with seven teams.
This year's list of high school teams will have participants from Blair County as well as Clearfield, State College, Bedford and Penns Manor. The junior high league will consist of teams from Blair County as well.
"We may go with four divisions this year, but we could go a couple of more," Dry said about the adult league. "With the 16 high school teams, we will have two eight-team divisions. We picked up some teams that were going to play in the Blair Regional YMCA League, but they are not having an indoor league this year. The junior high teams will have their division."
According to Gov. Tom Wolf, Blair County will go green on Friday, which paves the way for the summer league at Lakemont Park to begin.
"We go green Friday and we start the league on the 15th. We will be ready to go. We will make sure the courts are ready," Dry said. "We are already buying the hand sanitizer, the soap, the cleaning wipes. We will definitely follow the guidelines put down by the PIAA and the governor."
Tony Evangelisto, the coach of Superior Detailing & Accessories in the adult league, says his team is excited that there will be summer ball in Blair County.
"I figured something good was going to happen for us to have a team," he replied when asked if there was ever concern that there would be no league this year. "Nothing has me concerned. The whole team is ready to play. We just want to get this thing started."
With four courts, there was early talk about only being able to play two games at one time and no more, but that is not the case anymore according to Dry.
"The courts are spaced out enough that we can run all four and still have social distancing," Dry said. "What makes it good for us is that it's an outdoors league. Different rules and regulations from an indoor league. It will work out."
Dry could not over-emphasize enough the importance of Friday's 5 p.m. meeting at the park.
"We are going to over everything, the little things that were brought up that we all need to know will be talked about," Dry said. "We are looking forward to a great season."