Andy Close
WARREN, Pa. – The Jamestown Jackals are bringing playoff basketball to Warren.
The Jackals, part of ‘The Basketball League’ will be hosting their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series at Warren Area High School, with Game 1 slated for June 30 (Wednesday) at 7 p.m.
“The gym that we’d been using in Erie doubled the cost of our rent, so I started panicking since we didn’t really have the budget for that,” said Jackals’ General Manager Kayla Crosby. “I reached out to Eisenhower, who put me in touch with the WCSD and Warren Area High School came through and was willing to host. A lot of our fundraising support has come from Pennsylvania.”
The Jackals, who have a 16-5 record in the 29-team league with four divisions (East, Central, Midwest, West) were initially unable to play in the state of New York because of COVID-19 restrictions.
“Last year, COVID shut us down in March,” Crosby said. “We had to completely shut down. This season, we had tryouts in September and October and we had to go to Erie because New York wasn’t permitting basketball because of COVID. We kept moving forward, recruiting from the basketball side of things. We ended up playing one weekend at the Warren YMCA and moved to Erie for nine of our other games.”
It’s been a crazy year, but Crosby (an Eisenhower High School graduate) and the Jackals have kept things going in the right direction.
“We’ve found a way,” she said. “We’ve played well. We have an awesome team and a great group of guys with some pretty extravagant resumes, guys that have played overseas.”
The Jackals are currently one game behind the Syracuse Stallions for first place in the East Division. The two teams meet on Friday, and if the Jackals were to win that game and beat the Tri-State Admirals on Sunday in their regular-season finale, they would earn the No. 1 seed.
Regardless, they will play either the Carolina Coyotes or the Atlanta Empire (those two teams are separated by ½ game in the first round. It will be a best of three series, with Game 2 on July 2 (Friday) at 7 p.m. and Game 3 (if necessary) on July 3 at 5 p.m.
And through all the uncertainty of the season, the players themselves have hung tough.
“They’ve been amazing,” Crosby said. “We have to practice in different venues every week. We’ve got to drive a little bit further and the guys all pay for their own gas. They haven’t complained once. They show up on time and compete. It’s been wonderful.”
Tickets for the games in Warren can be purchased here.
