As any current or former parent can attest...kids seem to have endless energy reserves. That theory was put to the test on March 5th by the girls' basketball team. When the Lady Bears tipped off against Lower Dauphin in their District 3-5A quarterfinal clash, they were playing their eighth game in the span of 15 days with the result being a 43-37 loss and an end to Elizabethtown's season.

Elizabethtown, behind a hot Jade Love-Morris, was able to outplay LD in the opening stanza despite the heavy workload heading into the game. Love-Morris' efforts resulted in a couple of silky jumpers along with a nifty lefty layup giving the junior guard six of her team high 13 while also pushing E-town to a 10-6 lead.

Love-Morris continued her hot stretch with an old school three-point play just over a minute into the second quarter, pushing the Lady Bear lead to 13-6. From there the Lady Falcons got hot and E-town was unable to keep pace. The result was a 16-0 LD run to close out the quarter. That flipped Elizabethtown's 16-6 lead into a 22-13 halftime deficit.

The Lady Bears appeared to regroup during the break, scoring the first five points of the third quarter, shrinking the deficit to 22-18 but another scoreless stretch squashed that momentum. With Elizabethtown unable to find their offense, Lower Dauphin dropped another run, this one 8-0, that pushed the lead back to 12 points at 30-18. A few buckets from both sides put LD on top 34-21 heading into the final eight minutes.

Down 13 points with just one quarter remaining the Lady Bears dug in for one last push, this time using Ainsley Raybold's 11 points as their fuel. The junior guard drilled three long range bombs, the last one with just under a minute remaining, to help E-town shrink the LD lead to a mere three points at 38-35. Unfortunately, Raybold's third triple of the frame was also the final meaningful points for Elizabethtown as Lower Dauphin pulled away at the line. Abigail Sedun drained a pair of freebies with 20-seconds remaining for E-town's final points, setting the final at 43-37.

SWIMMING

Elizabethtown's swimming season came to an end on March 6th when Ben Azzalina, Gabby Walsh and Morgan Conway made the tip to Mechanicsburg and Cumberland Valley High School for the District 3-3A Swimming Championships.

Azzalina was the last to go, doing his work in the 50-freestyle. The senior entered the event as the fifth seed and proceed to lower his own school record, posting a 21.44, on his way to a fifth-place finish in the final standings. Walsh was the first in the water for the 100-backstroke and nearly matched her seed time of 1:00.40 with her 15th place time of 100.67. Conway followed in the 100-backstroke where she finished sixth in the final standings. The freshman was able to trim her seeded time of 1:00.55 down to 1:06.53 in her sixth-place run.

BOWLING

The bowling team took the next step in their postseason journey on March 5th and 6th with a short trip to Lancaster's Leisure Lanes for the Eastern PA Regional Championships. "I was ecstatic about our performance," said head coach Frank Telenko of his team's fourth place finish. "Under 'normal' circumstances, we'd be qualified for States.

"It was rough for the kids, and admittedly, me, too," added Telenko, "but we've moved on and are concentrating our efforts on the Singles portion." The singles portion of the Eastern Regional Championships Telenko mentions will send the Bears back to Leisure Lanes on March 12th and 13th.

As for the team competition, Telenko used six different keglers to round out a scoring five that produced a score of 4186. That tally left E-town just 101 pins short of third place and the first team outside of the stepladder finals.

Alaina Telenko and Gabe Berrier teamed up for one of the five slots with Telenko going 203-149 in games one and two while Berrier stepped in for a 153 game three and a 505 series. Daniel Eberle, the L-L runner-up on the boy' side, posted a team high 680 series thanks to games of 211, 224 and 245 while Zach Wentzel checked in with games of 235, 224 and 214 for a 673 series. Zach Deardorff just missed the 600-pin club with his 584 series where he flirted with 200 in all three games, going 195, 199 and 190. Eryn Moore rounded out the Bears scorers with games of 158, 174 and 217 for a 549 series.