The Garden Spot girls' soccer team notched its first win of the season as Ashton Gonzalez recorded a hat trick on Monday, September 13.

"She scored three first-half goals," head coach Kyle Smith explained. "We were down 1-0 and scored three straight goals. We missed a couple of opportunities to extend the lead. It was a pretty good game."

The Spartans (1-3-0) defeated McCaskey 3-2 in the Lancaster-Lebanon League match. It was a far better result than the two previous games in which the Spartans offense was not able to finish on some opportunities.

Elizabethtown shut out Garden Spot 4-0 on Thursday, September 9. Jena Witters scored all four goals for the Bears - two in each half.

"We came up kind of slow," Smith stated. "They scored a couple of their goals off our mistakes. We couldn't get anything going."

Two days later, the Spartans suffered a 3-0 loss to Solanco - a game that the Spartan coach claimed was not as one-sided as the score indicated.

"We gave up a couple of weak goals," Smith said. "The 3-0 didn't reflect how we played. We were passing the ball around."

Garden Spot came up short by the same margin two days following their defeat of McCaskey. On Wednesday, September 15, Emily Weidner scored two of her team's three goals as Ephrata blanked Garden Spot 3-0, dropping the Spartans to 1-4-0. Avery Bitner assisted on all three goals.

"Our goal is to work our way up from the back to the front," Smith added. "Keeping possession to the final third - that's the key.

"We just need a couple more games where the score is closer - where it isn't 3-0," continued the coach. "And we can turn things around."

FIELD HOCKEY

Lauren Horning's overtime goal on Tuesday night, September 14, gave Garden Spot a 1-0 victory over Elco at New Holland, improving the Spartans to 2-0-0 in the L-L League (4-1-0 overall).

"We had a couple of corners and a foul occurred within the circle," explained head coach Katy Eby. "They awarded us a penalty corner and Lauren was able to get off a great shot inside the far post."

Bryna Kelly and Amanda Hoover each collected three saves in the shutout win as the Spartans out-shot the Raiders 9-6

"The girls were excited and knew they had to battle to the end," Eby added. "We knew, going into this game, that Elco was a great team. We knew it would be a tight game."

Playing five games in a span of eight days, the Spartans' lone defeat was a 3-1 non-league loss to Lancaster Mennonite the night prior to the Elco match. On Saturday, September 11, they topped Lebanon 2-0 in another Section Three match with Horning and Melanie Esh each netting one goal while Kelly and Hoover each grabbed two saves.

BOYS' SOCCER

Garden Spot suffered a tough 1-0 loss to Ephrata on Wednesday, September 15. The Spartans were coming off a 4-1 loss to McCaskey two nights earlier and a 3-1 loss at Reading in a non-league game Saturday, September 11.

CROSS COUNTRY

The Garden Spot boys triumphed over Cocalico, Lancaster Catholic and Northern Lebanon in a Section Two cross country race on Tuesday, September 14. The Spartans (4-1) raced past Cocalico 16-41, nipped Northern Lebanon 25-30 and clipped Catholic 27-28.

Josiah Martin's third-place time of 18:56 paced the Spartans. Alan Krock took fifth with a time of 18:56.

Finn Wenrich (19:32) took eighth while Thomas Watt's time of 19:47 earned him 10th place. Will Culbert took 12th at 20:00.

The girls' team was also involved in close races, including a 27-28 defeat of Cocalico on Tuesday. The host Crusaders topped the Spartans 24-32 while Garden Spot edged the Vikings 27-28.

Nicole Kelch and Julia Hoover took fifth and sixth, respectively, with times of 24:21 and 24:55. Hayley Zimmerman (10th, 25:59) also made the top-15.

FOOTBALL

Daniel Boone blazed into New Holland for a Friday night non-league game with the Spartans. The visitors managed to fend off a first-quarter scoring pass from Spartan senior Tristin Sadowski to Luke Nagle, which tied the score at 7-7, and finish the opening period ahead 21-7 en route to a 45-17 win.

Sadowski also connected with Javon Martin on a seven-yard scoring toss in the second half. He finished with 18 completions on 28 attempts for 212 yards. He also ran the ball 10 times for 41 yards.

The top recipient in receiving yards for Garden Spot was Zecheriah Nagle. The junior hauled in five passes for 100 yards on the night. Derrick Lambert caught seven passes for 75 yards.

Garden Spot plays two more non-league games, hosting Cocalico and visiting Pequea Valley before a league game at Donegal on October 1.

GOLF

Garden Spot's golf team evened its record at 10-10, shooting 367 as a team last Wednesday at Foxchase. It was a tight race for second place as Solanco's squad won the Section Two contest with a score of 343 while Conestoga Valley (365) and Elizabethtown (366) finished barely ahead of the Spartans.

The Spartans' Zach Uplinger finished at 85 while Logan Lesley and Justin Kemper scored 92 and 94, respectively Ryan Chapin recorded a 96 on the day.