While most of the high school sports world has their sights set on the end of the regular season, the girl's tennis team is knee deep in their postseason where, for the first time in over three decades, the Lady Bears qualified for the District 3 Team Tournament.

"Qualifying for team districts for the first time in 35 years represents a major milestone for our program and our players," said Lancaster-Lebanon League coach of the year Brenda McBride. "We are a team built from the ground up, as our top four senior players began playing tennis only 3 years ago."

As many sports fans know, the postseason is often not kind to newcomers and the experience was no different for Elizabethtown, falling in the opening round by a 3-1 final to Dallastown.

"Dallastown is synonymous with elite tennis," said McBride. "In the post-season, at some point you're going to come up against a team with a little higher skill level in terms of power and consistency. That was the difference today."

Julia Anderson collected the single win for E-town, topping Catherine Lasher in number three singles with the Lady Wildcats claiming both doubles matches and the other completed singles match. Despite the loss McBride remained positive. "As a team we worked so hard and achieved our goal of winning the section. The girls will always have that with them. It has been just a wonderfully successful year for our team."

The team action was not the only district tennis for Elizabethtown thanks to Allison Evans getting an at large bid to the 3A singles tournament that kicked off on October 15th. "We are so thrilled that Ally was selected for the at-large bid," said McBride. "There are some very good players that did not get in."

Evans' time in the singles bracket followed the same path as E-town's team journey, a first round loss, with the E-town senior falling to Mechanicsburg's Taryn Zerby by a 6-0, 6-0 final. leaving McBride to say, "She ran into a very skilled and consistent freshman in Taryn Zerbe who will be a force to be reckoned with over the next few years," said McBride. "Taryn played a near perfect match in terms of placement and power and made very few unforced errors. Ally can hold her head high. With Ally, you just cannot ask for a better example in showing what hard work and consistency can do, both on and off the court."

FIELD HOCKEY

Typically, when 'free hockey' is mentioned in the sports world it is referencing an overtime period but in a COVID world it can mean a game that was not originally on the schedule prior to the season but one added as a make-up game. The Lady Bear field hockey team did have a taste of traditional "free hockey" with two overtime wins during the regular season but their October 15th clash with Susquehanna Township was the COVID variety.

The result of that late season add was a 1-0 loss that set the Lady Bears final record at 6-10-2. Alaina Telenko posted 15 saves in her final high school contest but was unable to stop Ava Waters' game winner in the fourth quarter, sending the visiting Lady Indians off with the victory.

VOLLEYBALL

The wins keep coming for the girls' volleyball team with the Lady Bears now sporting a 15-0 mark on the season after taking out Lampeter-Strasburg and Solanco.

E-town used 14 kills and six aces from Kallee Locker combined with 18 assists from Angela Costa-Ouimet to cruise by L-S on the 14th, posting wins of 25-7, 25-18 and 25-17. Paige O'Connell added five digs and Anna Mower one block to aid the winning effort.

Four days later the Lady Bears locked up their first section title since 2017 by topping Solanco by the same 3-0 final. This time it was 18 kills and eight digs from Sydney Stewart combined with 27 assists and five aces from Costa-Ouimet that led to wins of 25-12, 25-17 and 25-9. O'Connell matched Stewart's eight digs while Chloe Merkt and Liz Kern added one block each.

CROSS COUNTRY

The cross-country teams made their annual trip to Ephrata for the L-L Championship on October 19th, and it was a memorable one for the Lady Bears. Their seventh-place team finish was good enough to earn a spot in the upcoming District 3-3A Championship on October 30th. Jordan DiRisio fronted the team finish, taking 17th. Ali Fink was the next Lady Bear to cross, doing so in 39th place while Lilah Drager (61st), Julia McAlonis (64th) and Jillian Wivell (67th) rounded out the scoring five.

On the boy's side it was Dalton Fink and his 52nd place run leading E-town to a 17th place team finish. Jaycen Conrad (81st) and Nathan Johnson (82nd) are primed to join Fink and the Lady Bears at the district meet but will have to wait to see if they make the cut. Jackson Kay (110th) and Ethan Cronin (112th) completed the top five.

FOOTBALL

For 24 minutes the E-town football team hung with Cocalico but that all changed early in the third quarter and the result was a 49-28 loss on October 15th. Hayden Haver's one yard plunge coupled with one of three Josh Rudy TD passes had the Bears in a one score, 21-14, game at intermission. But in a few short minutes, that deficit grew to 35-14 thanks to a 65-yard Anthony Bourassa score and a 41-yard Steven Flinton scamper sandwiched around Rudy's lone interception of the game.

The Bears regained their footing after that stretch and played Cocalico even the rest of the way, but the damage was done. Rudy accounted for the final two E-town scores, hitting Braden Cummings (3-50, TD) for a six-yard score before hooking up with Gilhool (4-77, 2TD) again, this one from 12-yards out. Rudy finished with 247 yards and three TDs while Logan Lentz added 78 total yards on 15 touches.