As the days in March melt away, the bowling team continues on with their postseason. The most recent action had the Bears at Leisure Lanes on Friday March 4th for the Eastern PA Regional Singles Championship and at 222 Dutch Lanes on Saturday the 5th for the team battle.

Elizabethtown sent a combined 11 bowlers to the two championship events with the highlights coming in Friday's singles competition. The headline belonged to Ella Eberle, but Derek Deardorff was able to steal the spotlight for a brief moment. Deardorff's moment came in the second game of qualifying when he dropped 12 straight strikes on his score card for a perfect 300. That tied him with Roman Catholic's Evan Garland and Conwell-Egan's Matt Coppola for high game honors. Deardorff rounded out his qualifying with games of 202, 189, 179 and 167, slotting him 23rd in the 144-person field with 1037 pins.

Eberle's headline grabbing day saw her finish qualifying tied for fifth with Warwick's Taylor Miller, each tallying 966 pins. Eberle put her total together with games of 186, 197, 179, 211 and 193, dropping her into the bracket finals with Danville's Abbey Crumb, Midd West's Mackenzie, and Central York's Madison Brenneman for an opening round quad-match. Eberle bowled a 181 in the quad-match, finishing second to Brenneman's 214, bringing an end the freshman's singles run. As one of the 12 finalists, Eberle did qualify for the PA State Championships to be held at 222 Dutch lanes on March 18th.

The rest of the Lady Bears slotted in behind Eberle, starting with Hannah Griffie. She tallied 863 pins over her five qualifying games, putting her 28th in the 112-member field. Kendra Griffie and Alaina Telenko ended up with just four pins separating their qualifying totals with Griffie's 843 giving her 32nd while Telenko finished 35th thanks to her 839. Ally Evans was up next, rolling games of 182, 116, 114, 147 and 151 to end up 82nd. Rylee Bender was the final Lady Bear to compete on Friday, tallying a 634 and finishing 104th.

Despite Deardorff's perfect game, Ayden Pope was the top qualifier for the boy's, tallying 1056 pins with games of 171, 256, 245, 214 and 170, putting him 17th. A mere 29 pins separated Zach Wentzel's 972 and Daniel Eberle's 943, but it was enough to give Wentzel 52nd place while Eberle was 70th.

When the Bears got back to action on Saturday for the team competition, their 'A' team of Telenko, Deardorff, Daniel Eberle, Wentzel and Pope competed on the boy's side. They finished 30-pins off the qualifying mark, settling for eighth place with a 4076. Eberle earned All-Star honors thanks to his team leading 680 series. Pope checked in next with a 600 series while Wentzel followed with a 576. Telenko and Deardorff finished with a 539 and 532, respectively.

Elizabethtown was able to field an all-girls team to compete in the girl's team championship where they finished 11th thanks to their 3182. Hannah Griffie led the way with a 540 series while Ella Eberle was just off that pace with a 535. Evans followed with a 476 while Bender was the final Lady Bear to bowl all three games, posting a 366 series. Kendra Griffie took games one (126) and two (164) as the fifth bowler with Candice Bixler stepping in with a 106 game three.

Asked to sum up his team's weekend, head coach Frank Telenko responded, "I am just proud of the way my kids performed. Derek is just a sophomore and experiencing success and how to become a future leader, and the girl's team had two freshmen and a brand-new bowler and finished 11th," with a final exclamation, "I am proud and honored to be the head coach of this program!!"

BOYS' BASKETBALL

The boys' basketball team had their foray into the PIAA-5A playoffs cut short thanks to first round setback at the hands of District 7 champ, Laurel Highlands. The 55-33 loss took place March 8th with the Mustangs holding serve on their home court behind a strong second half.

Laurel Highlands needed that second half surge because E-town hung with the undefeated champs throughout the opening 16 minutes, leading to a 24-21 game at the break. The Mustangs more or less put the game away in the third quarter, holding the Bears to just two points while scoring 17 of their own. That took the slim three-point halftime margin and ballooned it to 18-points. A 14-10 edge through the final stanza for the home team set the final.

Matthew Gilhool tied Laurel Highland's Joe Chambers for game high honors with 18 points. Patrick Gilhool chipped in 10 points while Techeal Gonquoi (four points) and Braden Cummings (one point) rounded out the scoring.

SWIMMING

The Elizabethtown swim team made one final appearance for the 2021-2022 season with a trip to Cumberland Valley High School for the District 3-3A Championships. No Bears made it to the podium although Everett Rachael had two near misses. The first came when he finished ninth in the 200-freestyle, despite his 1:47.37 eclipsing his seeded time by nearly two seconds. Racheal added another ninth-place finish, this time in the 500-freestyle with the string of missing a district medal eased by lowering his school record to 4:52.56.

The Bears also had a relay team make the district cut with Rachael, Nathan Yohn, Riley Runnels and Wyatt Rachael finishing 13th in their 200-freestyle run with a time of 1:33.07.

The Lady Bears sent three different swimmers to Cumberland Valley with two of the swimmers pulling double duty. Morgan Conway's top finish came with a 1:09.80 in the 100-breatstroke, placing her 12th. She added an 18th place finish in the 200IM with a time of 2:18.67.

Genna McDonald finished 27th in the 100-breaststokre (1:12.71) and 30th in the 100-butterfly (1:05.78). Ali Fink rounded out the E-town contingent, placing 27th in the 100-butterfly with a time of 1:04.89.