Where are the Seniors After Dark?


Photo By: Scott Allenby

Senior Study Hall. Three words that historically bring joy and excitement to seniors at Proctor Academy in the spring. Those words signal the beginning of the end and give seniors the opportunity to make some decisions about how they’ll spend those extra two hours every night. As many of my fellow seniors struggled to come up with a plan to fill that newfound freedom, I came up with a potential solution: Basketball. And so, what I hope will be a new tradition at Proctor was born.
With week three now in sight, the Proctor Academy Senior Study Hall Basketball League (PASSHBL) is well under way. There are four teams; each drafted with a Proctor Varsity Basketball starter as captain.  Drew MacInnis, Tshiefu Ngalakulondi, Caleb Green, and Geo Baker picked their squads from a cast of over thirty senior guys and faculty members.  Teams are made up of eight or nine players, taking injuries (suffered during their official spring sports) and school work into consideration with the understanding that on a weekly basis, any given team may have only seven or eight available.

The number one pick in the draft, Matthew Slick said, “It was an honor going number one. When I heard about the idea of the league I was really excited. Rumor had it that senior study hall could be pretty boring.”  He went on to say, “There is not typically a lot that happens on campus past 8:00. Now we have something to look forward to every week that is actually really fun and competitive. I can't wait to see how the rest of the season turns out.”

PASSHBL will run for six weeks of “regular season” games, held in the cage on Thursday nights. Each team plays one game per week and the games consist of two sixteen minute halves with a running clock until the last two minutes where it is stopped on a whistle or foul.  Tip off for game one happens at  8:00 PM ET.  Provided the first game runs smoothly, the second game, each week, will tip off at 8:45 PM ET.  Regular season play will be followed by two weeks of what I have dubbed as “May Madness,” our post-season tournament play which will culminate on May 18 when one team is crowned the world champions.

Week one brought some exciting play as Team Caleb, the early favorite,  and Team Tshiefu came out with slim victories, but week two was a different story. Team Geo and Team Drew picked up their first wins with Team Drew upsetting the preseason favorites, Team Caleb, in convincing fashion. With the standings all knotted up at one win and one loss apiece, teams are looking forward to six more weeks of competition, and trying to bring home the first ever Proctor Academy Senior Study Hall Basketball League trophy. If you are interested in following, but cannot be there live, follow our Twitter account @PAmensleague, created by sophomore Henry Bechok, for the latest stats, player buzz, and interesting facts from around the league.

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