According to Dorothy in 'The Wizard of Oz' there is no place like home. The E-town softball team has a case to disprove that theory with their 4-3 playoff loss to Mechanicsburg as evidence. The loss occurred on May 23rd in the opening round of the District 3-5A playoffs, and the game was played at Elizabethtown Boro Park, the Lady Bears home turf, poking holes in the no place like home theory.

Brooke Bryan scattered seven hits and allowed no earned runs but still took the loss thanks to three Elizabethtown errors producing all four Lady Wildcat runs. The first half of that output took place in the top of the fourth and turned a 2-0 E-town lead into a 2-2 deadlock. The second half came one inning later, making it 4-2 with just two and a half innings remaining. Elizabethtown did cut into the deficit with a Sophia Finch RBI single in the bottom of the fifth, but the rally ended there, leaving the game 4-3 where it would end.

The Lady Bears plated their initial two runs in the bottom of the third when Madison Bell kicked things off with a one-out double. Ava Fair followed with a run producing triple to put E-town on the board with a Jessica Zimmerman sac fly up next to make it 2-0.

TRACK

Select members of the track and field team made the journey to Shippensburg University for the 2022 edition of the District 3 Championship Meet. The sun set on the Bears' season in Shippensburg as only one athlete was able to produce a podium finish with no one meeting the state qualifying standard in their event.

Anna Rank was that lone podium finisher, collecting an eighth-place medal for clearing 10-6 in the 3A pole vault. Rank's counterpart on the boy's side, Carlton Wise, faltered and was unable to record a successful vault.

The Lady Bears sent two relay teams to compete with the 3200m relay of Sierra Kapcsos, Lilah Drager, Jordan DiRisio, and Ali Fink taking 14th with a time of 10:07.42. The 400m relay team of Felicia Morris, Genna McDonald, Addy Haak and Erin Stoltzfus posted a 51.98, good enough for 15th.

McDonald also participated in the 100m and 200m events but did not make it out of the preliminary round. In both events McDonald ended up with painful near misses, posting a 12.92 in her 100m prelim which was the same time as the last semifinal entrant. She experienced similar results in her 200m prelim, finishing in 26.71 and missing the semifinal cut by a mere 0.11 seconds.

The boy's team had four members take part in two events with Zach Verghese and Owen Dommel making the 200m field while Juan Lopez and Taidou N'Dikwe both made the 400m field. Neither Verghese nor Dommel was able to advance out of the preliminary round, but Dommel's 23.45 was just 0.35 seconds from doing so. Verghese posted a 23.66 in his prelim heat. Lopez and N'Dikwe both ran in heat one of the 400m event with Lopez ultimately finishing 17th and N'Dikwe in 21st after all the heats were complete.