For the first time this summer, high school boys basketball returned to the outdoor courts after the first month-and-a-half of the Lehigh Valley summer league was played inside at the Whitehall School District schools.

Unfortunately, rain on the first day - Thursday - moved everything back inside, but the rest of the weekend was played at Cedar Beach as local boys basketball teams played in their first major tournament of the offseason at the Bash at the Beach Showcase last weekend.

This event is the unwritten start of the summer on the circuit.

Lehighton and Panther Valley were two of the local teams that were a part of a field of over 30 teams in two divisions (large and small school divisions) that competed in the double-elimination tournament.

The Indians won their opening game on Thursday night against Salisbury, led by 19 points from freshman Blake Roberts. They then fell in their next two contests to eventual champion Holy Cross and Oley Valley.

Roberts also led the team in scoring in game two with 12 points, and Joe Roth tallied a team-high 15 points in the final game. That’s been nothing new for those two as they have led the team in scoring throughout the summer.

Head coach Trevor Miller felt his team had a good weekend and gained some valuable experience.

“I feel great after this weekend,” said Miller. “We are an extremely young and inexperienced team, so this summer has been all about getting better together and improving every day. We have gotten better every day this summer and we did that again this past weekend.”

Holy Cross and Oley Valley are two strong teams and performed as the top-two in the division, with Holy Cross winning the title over Oley Valley. So those defeats are nothing that Miller wants his group to hang their heads over.

“We played the two best teams in the tournament and took both teams down to the wire,” Miller said. “I told our guys that after this tournament, they should now feel like they can play with anyone. We’ve put an emphasis on off-season lifting and training throughout our program.

“Our kids have been extremely dedicated to the weight room and improving. This tournament was a good test to see how far we’ve come this off-season and it proved that we are headed in the right direction.”

The Panthers lost both of their games, by four points against Saucon Valley (38-34) on Thursday and then a 54-45 defeat to Roberto Clemente on Saturday.

The two teams will now get back into summer league action this week before another major tournament in July, back at Cedar Beach.