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High school basketball fans flock to Mohegan Sun Arena

A 15 percent capacity crowd was allowed for a tournament.

WILKES-BARRE TOWNSHIP, Pa. — Inside Mohegan Sun Area, the high school boys basketball teams from Riverside and Wyoming Seminary warmed up before the 8 p.m. tip-off for their District 2 championship game.

But it was the fans in the stands that were getting the attention.

For the first time since the pandemic shut everything down last March, the arena near Wilkes-Barre is allowing 15 percent of its 10,000 person capacity inside.

That means that 1,500 fans can root for their teams during the tournament that runs through Saturday.

Arena General Manager Will Beekman believes it's possible to get that amount of people inside for the three-day event.

"We think so,” said Beekman. “We have a couple of great games, 11 games in all, and some of them have tickets moving pretty quickly, so we're excited to see some people back in here, and I think we're going to come close to that capacity number.”

For the student-athletes, they are just happy to be playing in front of an audience.

"It's really nice, especially because we haven't had spectators at most of our games. To see so many here today was really just changing the whole game,” said Susquehanna Sabers senior Courtney Bennett, who is one of the captains of her basketball team.

"Just to have fans again, just looking at this arena, it's just like so surreal, it's insane to actually see our family watch us again,” said Riverside Vikings senior Merison Stecik, who is one of the captains of her cheerleading team.

"It was great to see her play her last year. And I'm just very thankful that we're able to go through a pandemic, and the school board, they made it happen,” said Forest City parent Joseph Pleska, whose daughter is a senior on the Lady Foresters basketball team.

The general manager of the arena says he just thrilled to be holding events again, saying the arena lost so much money in all the cancellations last year.

"It's been a long 12 months. We've refunded more than $3 million worth of ticket sales since last March,” said Beekman.

But the turnstiles were clicking again at Mohegan Sun Arena, prompting hopes that better days are ahead.


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