If you look at your calendar and see September, it can only mean one thing...the return of high school sports!! For the Elizabethtown field hockey team, that return meant a busy opening weekend to the 2021 season.

The Lady Bears kicked things off with a 12-0 romp over Middletown on Friday the 3rd. Mikaela Condran did the heavy lifting, collecting half of the team's tally while Caitlin Steffie and Piper Patrick chipped in with two scores each. Alaina Telenko and Sydney Pope shared the win but faced no shots in recording the shutout.

Elizabethtown had no time to enjoy the season opening victory as they were back at it one day later, battling Hempfield to a 1-1 tie. Telenko went solo to secure the Saturday tie while Condran picked up the lone score.

FOOTBALL

The E-town football team has season openers down to a science. The Bears have captured six straight opening night contests with five of the six coming over their backyard neighbor, Donegal. That includes this year's opener, a 14-7 victory on August 27th. The Bears used a Josh Rudy to Brock Belmont connection for their first visit to paydirt while Hayden Haver secured the win with his three-yard burst in the fourth.

One-week later Elizabethtown found themselves on the opposite end of a 14-7 final, falling in overtime to Mechanicsburg. The Bears lone score came in the opening stanza when Rudy hit Braden Cummings for a 31-yard strike. The Wildcats tied the game in the fourth on a blocked field goal returned for a score before winning in OT.

VOLLEYBALL

With just one game under their belt the E-town girls volleyball team sits in a four-way logjam atop the Section Two standings. A 3-0 win over Manheim Central on the 7th put the Lady Bears in a first-place tie beside Ephrata, Lampeter-Strasburg and Solanco. Sydney Stewart picked up eight kills in the 25-13, 25-22 and 25-17 victory while Anna Mowrer dished out 13 assists.

TENNIS

The girl's tennis team has come out of the 2021 gate smoking hot, ripping off five straight wins.

"I am so proud of these girls," said head coach Brenda McBride. "The girls we have on the team have worked year-round for several years to develop as players and it is paying dividends," continued McBride, "Yesterday's come-from-behind win against Manheim Central was a true test that will help us in the tough matches coming against LS and Donegal. Those matches come with section title implications, and we hope to be ready."

Elizabethtown's wins have come over Penn Manor (4-1), Conestoga Valley (7-0), Lancaster Country Day (5-2), and Ephrata (4-1) coupled with the 4-3 Central win McBride referenced.

CROSS COUNTRY

The boys' and girls' cross-country teams joined in on the season opening success. Both squads posted wins over Lebanon and Ephrata on September 7th while placing all five scorers inside the top 10.

Ali Fink (second) and Jordan DiRisio (third) paced the Lady Bears while Kendall Heim, Julia McAlonis and Jillian Wivell finished things up with a fifth-sixth-seventh place stretch. That led to a 23-38 win over Ephrata and a 15-50 lapping of Lebanon.

For the boy's, it was Nathan Johnson leading the way, matching Fink's silver for the day. Nathan Gubbins, Jaycen Conrad and Dalton Fink posted their own fifth-sixth-seventh place run with Jackson Kay taking the last scoring spot courtesy of ninth place. The Bears posted an identical 23-38 win over Ephrata while topping Lebanon 21-40.

GOLF

The golf team is all in on the fast start to the 2021 season, so much so that the Bears sit in second place in Section Two, rocking a 15-4 mark. The hot start includes back-to-back, second place, 4-1 days at Iron Valley on August 19th and at Sunset on August 26th along with a first-place trip around Meadia Heights on September 7th. In between the Bears stumbled a bit in their September 2nd round at Honeybrook, dropping to third as Garden Spot used their home course advantage to move up to second.

E-town actually finished that round at Meadia Heights tied with Solanco, 365-365, but claimed a 565-577 victory on the second tiebreaker. A second tiebreak was needed as the fifth scorers for both sides carded a 100. Quinn Dolan secured the win for Elizabethtown with another 100 while Solanco's Wyatt Landis finished with a 112.

BOYS' SOCCER

The boys' soccer team got in on the action with a 3-2 win over Lampeter-Strasburg that head coach James Sostack called "a very open game that was a typical Section 2 barn burner and very physical."

The action on the field backed up Sostack's comment as his Bears took an early lead when Dax Kelly fed Carlton Wise in the 16th minute. L-S sent the game into intermission deadlocked at 1-1 with an Andrew Reidenbaugh header in the 36th minute. Elizabethtown appeared to grab control with just over 10 minutes remaining but the Jason Stark to Wyatt Rachael score was not enough. Lampeter-Strasburg knotted things up again less than a minute later with Dan Marcroft's long range bomb. Hayden Flory, with help from Kelly, finished the game up minutes into the OT period. "A tough game for both teams and a great Section 2 match up. Our young team showed true character after completing a tough preseason," said Sostack.

GIRLS' SOCCER

The Lady Bear soccer team was unable to join in on the hot start fun, instead falling to Lampeter-Strasburg by a 4-2 final on September 7th. Jena Witters took part in both E-town scores, setting up Kendall Davies in the 19th minute before converting a Liana Endy setup into a score in the 64th minute. Witters' heroics were not enough to overcome Lady Pioneers' Jenna Daveler and Molly Bucher who combined for three goals and two assists.