If it hurts your eyes to watch York Suburban's Mitch Kemp shoot a basketball, you can blame his older sister Jess.

Kemp's shooting motion, which he described as "awful" includes catching the ball down by his knees, lining his feet off to the side and then putting such a high arc on the ball that it rises as much as 20 feet in the air before falling through or near the basket.

"People have told me that it's weird and asked me why I did it, but my sister has the same shot," Kemp said. The senior's older sister scored 1,000 points at Suburban and went on to play at York College. "She's right-handed, but she has an arc just like mine. I guess it's family tradition or something."

It's strange and it's unique, but it works. Kemp is leading the Trojans (12-0) in scoring with 16.3 points per game and has remained loyal to his unorthodox style and doesn't get much resistance from his coaches.

Now that the new year is here, it's time to get serious about the division races in wrestling. And this will be a big week for many schools, especially New Oxford and Dallastown.

The Colonials and the Wildcats will meet in New Oxford Tuesday. And on Thursday, New Oxford hits the road to meet defending champion Spring Grove while Dallastown returns home to host South Western.

Here are some extra offerings from the Coaches vs. Cancer Classic hosted by York College during the first weekend of 2009:

Amanda Andrews (below) and freshman Julian Watson both achieved career-highs in points for the Spartans. Andrews shot 6-of-7 from 3-point range and scored 26 in the women's 82-48 blowout win over Buffalo State.

Watson (below) managed 21 in the men's 66-63 loss to McDaniel College.

Eight YAIAA alumni were listed on the roster of the four men's and four women's teams that competed in the eight game tournament.

The quality of the competition wasn't going to be an excuse for West York boys' basketball coach Bill Ackerman (above after his team won its second consecutive YAIAA tournament). It wasn't even going to be a consideration. Losing three games in a row under any circumstances is flat-out unacceptable in his eyes.

"All three teams were very good teams, but that's not an excuse," Ackerman said. "We schedule those teams to beat those teams, not to just get beat by them."

This season, the Bulldogs (4-4) are in an unfamiliar position sitting at .500 in early January. They usually have one of the best records in the league as a traditional area power. Winning the league tournament the last two consecutive seasons has given them serious bragging rights, but after back-to-back-to-back losses to Lake Clifton-Easton, West Chester Rustin and undefeated York Suburban raises some doubts about this year's squad.

Ackerman said it all comes down to "playing together" on the court.

Each year, the NFL regular season seems to end faster than the last. I find myself wondering what happened the previous four months...and then when the dust has settled and the playoff teams are known, it seems not much has changed from recent years.

Basically, you can count on the Pittsburgh Steelers, New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts and now the New York Giants to make near annual appearances in the playoffs. You can also count on the Detroit Lions, Oakland Raiders and Buffalo Bills to find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory...or in Detroit's case for the 2008 season, snatch defeat and keep an iron grip on it.

Looking for a resolution? How about seeing one of the area's four undefeated basketball teams?

The William Penn boys and Northeastern girls teams are still perfect this season and hold the top spot in the power rankings for the second consecutive week. The Eastern York boys and York Suburban boys are also undefeated, although one of them has to lose when they face each other at Suburban on Monday.

Nonetheless, it's been a solid first few weeks of the season for a whole bunch of YAIAA teams and from what I've seen, I think there will be three or four district champions crowned from this league in February.

But that's enough speculation from me. Check out the full rankings and rationale after the jump. Chime in with your thoughts in the comments section.

After seven spending seven seasons in the MLB, in the farthest possible places from York County (Toronto, L.A., Florida) adoptive son Mark Hendrickson is now just a hop, skip and jump down I83 from many of his friends and supporters.

Baltimore signed the lefty to a one-year, $1.5 million deal, and as Hendrickson told Daily Record reporter Dave Sottile, he is very happy to be able "to live a normal life for a change."

But, the big question here is will Hendrickson get the call from Cal?

Usually the smallest one on the court, York Catholic grad Ashton Bankos is making a fairly big mark so far during her freshman season at Juniata College.

The 5-foot-4 guard, who won three straight state Class AA championships with the Irish, has started all 10 games for the Eagles. She averages 5.8 points and an impressive 3.7 rebounds in 26 minutes of action per game.

In her game on December 18th, Bankos scored a career-high 13 points during Juniata's loss to nationally ranked Messiah College.

Bankos, seen below with her father, York Catholic coach Kevin Bankos, is joined at Juniata (4-6) by familiar YAIAA faces Meagan Raville of Delone Catholic, along with Trinity's Jen Hnatuck and Brittany Rider from Lancaster Catholic.

Japanese macaques soak in a hot spring pool at Jigokudani Monkey Park in the mountains near Yamanouchi Town in Japan's Nagano Prefecture on Dec. 28, 2008. The area is most famous for its so-called "snow monkeys," wild monkeys indigenous to Japan.

We received this letter from Brendan Cregan, who was the boys' soccer coach at Kennard-Dale from 1992-2001:

In reading your list of athletes it was obvious your contacts failed to talk with many people who were around in the 90s. You forgot to mention an athlete at all who easily belongs in your top 10, Sam Absher. Sam is a 1994 graduate who participated in varsity soccer, basketball and baseball. He was a two-time all-county soccer player, and a member of the all-state team in 1994. He led the Rams to two division titles and district appearances in 93 and 94. He left in1994 as Kennard Dale's all-time leading scorer. He was also a member of the 93 Kennard Dale District 3 basketball team and a varsity baseball player as well. How you could pass over Sam is amazing. He was one of the best athletes to go through Kennard-Dale High School, and to not even mention goes to show how well you did the research.

It's different this year because there's more experience and maturity, but mostly because this is their last chance for the seven seniors on the York Suburban girls' basketball team.

"This is it," senior forward Karli Swartz said. "We're not a young team any more. We don't have that excuse any more."

In 2006-07, the Trojans finished the season with a dismal 6-16 record. Last year, Suburban improved by three games to finish 9-13, but it was still not good enough to earn a spot in the postseason. But after winning six of their first nine games to start 2008-09, including a 41-37 victory over Dallastown Friday night, the Trojans have put themselves in good early position to reach the district tournament.

"We have the ability," Swartz said. "We have seven seniors and we have the ability to go out on the floor every night and step up and win."

Happy Holidays. Consider these rankings my gift to you. I know, it's pretty cheap, but it's the thought that counts, right?

Some of you may have already read about my disdain for preseason rankings and how they are basically an exercise in futility. How can you really know much of anything about a team before they step onto the playing surface? Even after the first couple of weeks, it's largely baseless speculation.

Now that the basketball season is about four weeks old, it seems like the right time to take a look at what the area boys and girls teams have done and try and rank them accordingly. As always, I welcome all of you to add your input into the comments section. This is far from an exact science and all opinions are welcome.

The full rankings for both genders can be found after the jump. Right now, I have Malik Genrett (above) and William Penn on top on the boys side and Lau-powered Northeastern No. 1 among the girls.

Once again the York College student advisory committee hit a home run with its Christmas in the Community program.

This past Saturday, each of the 20 Spartan sports programs, along with the cheerleading squad, brought in families from Access York for gifts and fun at the Grumbacher Sport and Fitness Center.

"This event is so much fun and the kids seem to really be into it," Assistant Dean for Athletics and Recreation Sean Sullivan said. "They understand that they are in a position where they can help other people. They do that and have a good time with it as well."

This was the seventh year the SAAC has contributed in helping the community, which goes a long way to show that student-athletes at York College care about a lot more than just themselves and their sports.

"This is a great opportunity for our student-athletes to give back to this community," Assistant Athletic Trainer and SAAC advisor Allison Kunkel said. "To be able to help someone else, especially at this time of year, is very satisfying."

The powers that be made one of the more obvious calls when they recognized Brandon Real as a first-team all-state running back in Class AAA. You could make a decent argument for him as player of the year, but I think they made the right call in picking Brian Baldrige, especially considering Thomas Jefferson won the state title.

There was another West York player that was not selected for either the first or second team who I believe deserves a spot: senior safety Blaine Fissel.

When Real went down with his collarbone injury in the playoffs, the West York defense continued to excel in the second half of the victory over Garden Spot to preserve the shut out and then held Manheim Central to only seven points in the district championship game, allowing the Bulldogs to win despite scoring only 13 points.

Fissel was the leader of that defense and deserves recognition for it, especially when you compare his numbers to some of the players that made the team.