Whitehall head coach Jeff Jones and his team have come full circle this season.

The Zephyrs were one of the area’s biggest surprises of the early season, as they stormed out to a 7-2 start with wins over Allentown Central Catholic and Pocono Mountain West in the process. Whitehall finished 7-15 last season.

But the Zephyrs began to show their inexperience, as they experienced some turbulence in the second half of the season. Whitehall dropped eight of its next 12 games.

After a 50-44 loss to Parkland Monday night, Whitehall ended its regular season with an 11-11 record, but the Zephs qualified for the district playofs – their first since 2020 when they were 12-11. They had faced a Parkland squad that lost consecutive games to Emmaus and Archbishop Wood.

Last week, Jones had to be away from the team because he contracted COVID, and had to quarantine for five days. In his absence, assistant coach Corey Frantz took over, but the team suffered defeats to Central Catholic and Northampton.

Jones saw a lopsided loss (78-44) possibly coming.

“We were really on high over beating Emmaus,” noted Jones. “It turned out to be one of our poorest games of the year, and it was disappointing.

“In the Northampton game, we had a good first half, and we were up by 11 at halftime. We were making shots and we played more man (defense) than the first time.

“But we got a little lax and they kept coming back. I thought we also got a little tight at the end.”

Jones will now have to battle with a long layoff before districts begin Feb. 24. The Zephyrs have a scrimmage with Blue Mountain Feb. 20, and they are looking for a second one, primarily a Class 6A school that isn’t involved with the East Penn Conference playoffs and one with an up-tempo offense.

He will continue to lean on junior guard Luke Keppel, who leads the team in scoring with a 15.8 average. Fellow juniors AJ Hines is averaging 11.1 points and Gavin Roberts adds 8.2 per game.

“Keppel is a good leader on and off the court,” stressed Jones. “He has a strong will to win. Keppel plays really hard.”

Jones believes his team can regain the things that helped them to a good start. He’ll plan some team bonding activities as well as practices.

“We’ll bring some food to practice and probably do things like bowling,” he said. “We do need some rest because I could see that we were tired in some games this year.

“We’ll be ready for whoever we play.”