High school sports have seen their share of issues due to COVID and the Elizabethtown swimming teams are no exception. Like everyone else, the Bears are cramming the remnants of their regular season into a condensed time frame. With that came a rare tri-meet on January 30th where E-town tangled with Ephrata and Conestoga Valley.

On the boy's side, E-town and Ephrata entered with matching 4-0 records meaning the winner would secure the Section Two title. The Mountaineers claimed the meet and their second straight section title thanks to a 105-65 victory. Elizabethtown eased some of the sting of the loss by posting a 132-35 win over Conestoga Valley.

Ben Azzalina enjoyed the lone event win for the Bears, claiming the 100-backstroke while adding a second place in the 50-freestyle. Wyatt Rachael picked up his only top-three finish, taking second in the 100-breaststroke. E-town also collected four bronze finishes on the day with Sam Azzalina picking up two (50-freestyle and 100-breaststroke). Nevin Rutherford (100-butterfly) and Carter Ketchum (500-freestyle) also placed third.

The Lady Bears did not enter the meet with the same high stakes as the boy's, but they ended up with the same results. E-town posted a win over CV, 132-37, but fell to Ephrata 106-64.

Despite the scores, the Lady Bears managed four wins led by the 200-medley relay squad of Gabby Walsh, Morgan Conway, Genevieve McDonald and Megan Handshew. Conway claimed two of the remaining three wins (200-freestyle and 100-breaststroke) while Walsh enjoyed the final victory in the 100-butterfly. Walsh finished her day with a second-place finish in the 100-backstroke. Handshew fronted the third-place finishers for her work in the 50-freestyle and the 100-backstroke while Gabi Dabbs (100-freestyle), Brooke Heisey (500-freestyle) and Madi Conway (100-breasstroke) rounded out the top three finishers.

The swimming teams also took part in a standard issue dual meet opposite Cocalico on the 27th where the boy's posted a 115-49 win while the Lady Bears celebrated a 126-40 victory.

The Lady Bears claimed all three relay events and posted top three sweeps in three individual events to aide their efforts. Heisey led two of those sweeps by taking first in the 200- and 500-freestyle while mixing in a leg on the 400-freestyle relay team. Walsh fronted the last of the solo events sweeps and, along with Dabbs and Stephanie Hall, joined Heisey for that 400-freestyle relay win. Morgan Conway earned two solo events (50-freestyle and 100-breaststroke) and helped two in relays. She teamed with Walsh, McDonald and Handshew to win the 200-medley relay and with Handshew, McDonald and Dabbs to claim the 200-freestyle relay. Hall (100-freestyle) and McDonald (100-butterfly) picked up the final two solo wins.

BOYS' BASKETBALL

The year of transition continues for the boy's basketball team. With a new, first year, head coach and a team with just two seniors, the Bears sit at 2-4 on the season after a 72-45 setback to Conestoga Valley on January 29th.

The Bears were outscored in all but the second quarter, where they drew even with the Buckskins, 13-13, making it a 28-21 game at the break. CV did the bulk of their damage after the break, outscoring E-town 23-10 in the third, pushing the deficit to 20 points. CV padded its cushion with a 21-14 fourth quarter run.

Luke Pierson just missed game high honors with 21-points, falling one point shy of CV's Luke Rumbaugh. Techeal Gonquoi chipped in 10-points to give the Bears two double digit scorers but only two other Bears cracked the box score, Braden Cummings (eight points) and Dax Kelly (six points).

After a few snow days, the boy's traveled to Lebanon where they fell to the Cedars 41-32. Just two players reached double figures, Gonquoi for Elizabethtown and Marquis Ferreira for Lebanon, and they tied for game high honors with 10 points. Pierson added eight but it did not stop Lebanon from posting a slight scoring edge in all four quarters to hand E-town the loss.

WRESTLING

The wrestling team shook off their two-match slide on January 27th with a 41-30 victory over Ephrata, winning seven of the 13 matches, all with bonus points, on their way to the win.

Elizabethtown jumped out to a quick 24-0 lead thanks in large part to three Ephrata forfeits. Wyatt Mumma (113), Lauren Hoffman (120) and Nathan Thomas (126) enjoyed the forfeit wins while Austin Reitmeyer kicked off the run with a pin at 106. The Mountaineers claimed the next three matches but E-town was still up 24-12. Jake Rudy started another bonus point run with his 18-2 tech fall victory at 152. Bobby Walters (160) and Hayden Haver (172) stretched Elizabethtown's lead to 41-12 with back-to-back pins. Ephrata cut into the lead with another three-match run to close out the night.

RIFLE

The rifle team took part in their third COVID induced double header on January 28th, dropping 494-486 and 870-868 decisions to Manheim Central to fall to 3-7 on the season. Emma Kreiser posted the top score in each match with double 99s. Emily Bonsall went 99-97 for the day, slotting her second on the team. Allison Lowell was the only other Bear to have both rounds make the top five, posting matching 96's. Rachel Gerberich (97) and Nizaly Ortiz-Kreiner (97) finished up the scoring five in the 494-486 loss.

As they have with three of their other matches this year, the Bears needed extra shooters to determine a winner in their second head-to-head with Central. Aivery Shuck (98) and Kyle Lloyd (97) completed the top five in the 870-868 loss. Ortiz-Kreiner and Kate Kruft followed with a pair of 96s. Parker Bryant (95) and Gerberich (92) may have been the last of the nine shooters but their scores were needed on this day to determine a winner.

BOWLING

The bowling team picked up their fifth straight 7-0 win on January 29th, rolling by Ephrata. Alaina Telenko led the way with a 714 series. The Bears finished with four bowlers over the 600-pin count plateau with Daniel Eberle (658), Zach Deardorff (653) and Eryn Moore (628) joining Telenko. Zach Wentzel wasn't far behind with his 581 series.

GIRLS' BASKETBALL

Despite not seeing action for a week and not completing a game for 22 days, the Lady Bear basketball team can still play. Need proof, how about a 58-37 win over Lebanon on February 3rd. Jade Love-Morris netted 14 of her game high 16 in the opening half, helping to push the home team to a 36-19 cushion at the break. Elise Hassinger picked up the final six of her 14 points during a 12-9 third quarter run that pushed the margin to 20 points before the Lady Bears backed off to coast to the 58-37 final.