Hempfield junior Seamus Mack earned a spot in the semifinals of the PIAA Class 3A Wrestling Championships at the Giant Center in Hershey on Friday, March 10. Reaching the semifinals assured him a spot on the podium. Mack settled for sixth place.

Having already registered a fall in the first period of his first match - one in which he pinned Cathedral Prep senior Sammy Staab in 1:07 - Mack faced Michael Turi of West Scranton. He needed only 30 seconds to pin the freshman, earning his ticket to Saturday's semis.

Andrew Binni of Canon-McMillan came into the state tournament with 42 wins under his belt. In the Saturday morning match with Mack, Binni came out on top 6-4 in a classic battle.

"He has wrestled Binni before," said Knights' coach Shane Mack. "He wrestled him well and kept himself in the match.

"They were on the edge," continued the coach. "Seamus had a chance to score near the end of the match to tie it up. But they ended up out of bounds."

An even closer and heartbreaking decision by a 5-4 margin cost Mack a chance to earn third place in the consolation brackets. He fell to Eren Sement of Council Rock North, which set up a battle with Hayden Cunningham of State College for the fifth-place match.

"He got taken down in the last few seconds," Mack explained about the match with Sement. "We were ahead 3-2 and relaxed, I think. The kid got a takedown in the last four or five seconds of the match. Lesson learned."

Cunningham, having lost to Tahir Parkins of Nazareth in the consolation semis, outlasted Mack in a 7-4 decision to take fifth place..

"Cunningham is strong and hard to score on," Mack said.

As for the progression of Mack's high school wrestling career, he was a state qualifier as a sophomore and placed eighth.

"He made it to the podium as a sophomore where he was at 126," said the coach. "The weight classes changed this year, so he was 127. He moved up two spaces on the podium.

"Obviously he was happy to make it to states and to the podium," Mack continued. "Each time you achieve something, your expectations become greater."

BOYS' BASKETBALL

Hempfield head basketball coach Danny Walck spoke of his team's tenacity on Saturday, March 11. The Black Knights overcame a first half in which visiting Emmaus was leading by as much as seven points.

"It wasn't going down," Walck said of the basketball targeted at the Emmaus bucket. "I thought we survived that and got to halftime. I liked our resilience."

By halftime of the PIAA Class 6A opening round playoff game, the Black Knights had trimmed the deficit to 25-24. While the Hornets swarmed the basket and continued to dominate the offensive boards in the first half, Hempfield kept pace, largely thanks to Kamyn Lawrence, who scored 13 of his total 17 points in the first half.

The Knights came back and held off Emmaus in the final minutes to post a 62-59 victory.

"I think my teammates were looking for me and they found me," Lawrence said. "We executed plays.

"Their defense was pretty intense," Lawrence added. "We just had to fight through it."

Miguel Pena, the Knights' leading scorer, was held to one basket in the first half - a three-pointer later in the second quarter. He hit two more treys in the second half and made some key foul shots down the stretch, finishing with a team-leading 18 points.

"I started very slow," Pena admitted. "The team picked me up.

"When he got hurt, I picked up where he left off," Pena added, referring to Lawrence, who left the game with an ankle injury.

"They played man-to-man defense, but they switched it up a little bit," Walck explained. "They had a few zone possessions there. We knew that coming in they're a team that switches defenses and we had to adjust."

Hempfield (24-3) outscored Emmaus 16-9 in the third quarter. In fact, the Knights came on with a 16-5 run after the Hornets scored the first two baskets of the third quarter. The second of those baskets was Jake Fotta's layup on the third offensive rebound of the Hornets' attack.

"They're a great rebounding team," Walck said. "That's one of their strengths. Their second-chance points were huge. They were rebounding the ball extremely well. They finish well around the rim."

Starting the fourth stanza with treys by Pena and Ben Troyer (6 pts) followed by baskets from Pena and Chase Calabretta (6 pts), the Knights built a 50-39 lead at the 5:50 mark of the period.

The Hornets turned the momentum with their 14-2 run, spearheaded by a pair of three-point plays - hoop and harm variety - courtesy of Dylan Darville (10 pts) and Jametric Harris, who led all scorers with 23 points.

When Will Barber (17 points) scored with only 1:15 left to play, the Hornets grabbed a 55-54 lead. From that point on, foul shots by Michael Rieker, Pena and junior guard Nick Deeg clinched it for Hempfield.

Walck expressed his pleasure over how everyone did their part in this victory.

"Those guys who came off the bench knew their role," said the coach. "They stayed engaged and gave us great minutes."

Asked about the Hornets' defense not showing Pena any open shots in the first half, Walck emphasized the team aspect. "He's an excellent player but the other guys are also good players. They know their role - execute and do your part. We need everyone to fulfill their roles."

"It's now how you start; it's how you finish," Pena said. "And we finished the game strong."

"It's a state playoff game, so the margin of error is very slim," said Walck. "We need to take care of possessions, rebound better and make foul shots."

The Knights' stellar season came to a heartbreaking finish on Wednesday evening at the Geigle Complex in Reading. Having shots go in was a brutal ordeal on the Ides of March as both the Knights and the Spring-Ford Rams headed to the locker rooms at halftime of a two-point game - Rams 16, Knights 14.

Spring-Ford outscored Hempfield by a mere two points in the second half to win the second-round PIAA playoff game 43-39, ending the Knights' season at 24-4.

Lawrence and Pena led Hempfield in scoring with 11 and 10 points, respectively. Pena made a pair of treys on the night. Hester also made a three-point bucket and finished with seven points.

EJ Campbell of Spring-Ford led all scorers with 15 points. The Rams (27-3) entered the PIAA's as the second seed out of a tough District One.

The S-F and Hempfield game was the nightcap of a doubleheader at the Geigle Complex. District Eleven champ Parkland defeated the Garnet Valley Jaguars, the seventh seed from Dist. One, 74-58.