By Greg Schneider
The Donegal field hockey team is in the midst of an excellent season, but probably would not agree with that assessment right now after coming up one win short of successfully defending its 2008 Lancaster-Lebanon League championship.
The Indians made a good run at keeping their title last week as they blanked Solanco, 3-0, in the first round at Penn Manor on Monday and then edged Warwick, 2-1 (the same score they defeated Warwick by in last season's championship match) in a semifinal pairing at Penn Manor on Tuesday to reach Thursday's championship final at Manheim Central against Penn Manor.
Their run, however, ended there as the Comets, who had defeated the Indians, 4-2, in a nonleague match on October 7, won again, 3-1, to wrest the title away from the Tribe.
The Indians played well in Thursday's final and in some aspects actually outplayed the Comets, but just could not put the ball in the cage enough times to win the match. They finished even with the Comets with five shots on goal in the contest and forced a 12-8 edge in penalty corners, but could not parlay their corner advantage into the victory.
The Indians did get their lone score off one of those dozen corners to briefly tie the match at 1-1 with 25:48 left in the second half, but the other 11 opportunities came up empty, while the Comets, on the other hand, made good use of their penalty corners, notching all three of their goals off the set plays.
Jill Witmer opened the evening's scoring when she took the penalty-corner inbounds from Nancy Stehman and one-touched it into the Donegal cage to put the Comets up 1-0 with 13:29 left in the first half.
Witmer's goal, the 100th of her career, held up through the rest of the half and 4:12 into the second half until Kirsten Gochnauer knocked in the equalizer for the Indians. The play was set up by a penalty corner, but Gochnauer salvaged the goal after the original attack off the inbounds pass misfired.
Katie Robinson took the inbounds hit and sent it to Laura Gebhart, who could not keep it in the circle, but after regaining control, crossed it back into the circle where Gochnauer slapped it past Penn Manor goalie Carenna Neely (four saves) to make it a new match with 25:48 left in the contest.
The tie proved to be short-lived, however, as Witmer and Stehman again hooked up on a corner just 2:09 later to put the Comets up for good.
The Indians kept pounding away, but could not get another ball past Neely and the Comets iced the victory when Kelly Harsh, who took the inbounds hit on yet another successful corner for the Comets, deflected Witmer's shot past Indian goalie Alyssa Gower (two saves) to make it 3-1 with 16:53 left in the match.
In their first-round match against Solanco, the Indians led 1-0 at the half on Karlee Farr's goal at 24:39 and then added two more unanswered goals in the second half to win easily. Farr (7:58) and Gochnauer (6:12) had the second-half tallies. Olivia Leaman and Gebhart had saves on two of the Tribe's goals and Gower had two saves to earn the shutout in goal.
The Indians dominated from the outset, finishing with whopping 25-2 and 22-4 advantages in shots and corners.
Tuesday's match with Warwick was a different story as the two sides played each other evenly with the issue only being decided on Gebhart's goal just two minutes (2:03) into the second half.
The Indians again finished with an 11-7 edge in corners, while Warwick held a slight 9-8 edge in shots on goal.
The Indians drew first blood in this one on Mary Lynam's acrobatic goal on Donegal's first shot of the match, just 1:31 into the game. Lynam had to make a diving attempt to get a stick on Kathryn Markovits' cross and just got enough of it to deflect it past Warwick goalie Julie Kolmer (six saves).
Lynam's goal did not hold up long, however, as the Warriors struck back on Jocelyn Scillia's goal just 3:45 later to make it a 1-1 game.
That score lasted until Gebhart produced what would prove to be the game-winner in the second half.
Next up for the Indians is a District Three Tournament date today (Tuesday, Oct. 27) when they will play Susquenita at Hempfield at 4 p.m.
SOCCER
The Donegal boys soccer team's first visit to the Lancaster-Lebanon League playoff since 1988 did not last long as the Indians had the misfortune to draw Manheim Township, the winner of the last five L-L titles, in the first round at Manheim Central on Tuesday.
The scrappy Indians, 12-5, and runner-up in Section Three, however, did give the 16-1-1 Streaks a good go-round before giving up two second-half goals to fall, 2-0.
Despite being outplayed from the outset (Township finished with a 12-0 advantage in shots and a 7-1 edge in corners) the Indians stayed in the match on a solid performance in goal by Adam Forster, who turned away 10 Township tries.
But, forcing as many opportunities as they did it was only a matter of time before the Streaks would cash in. After Forster kept them frustrated in the first half, they finally got a shot by him when midfielder Don Burton slipped a curve inside the near post just 1:33 into the second half.
The Blue Streaks added an unneeded insurance goal when Luke Oostdyk took Burton's rebound and put it just under the crossbar with 23:35 left in the match.
The Indians also played at Northern Lebanon last Monday and dropped a 3-1 decision to the Vikings in the regular-season finale.
All the scoring came in the first half as Justin Ulmer connected for Donegal at the 1:01 mark, while the Vikings answered with a hat trick from Ryan Comiskey (4:00, 18:34) and Justin Eisenhauer (3:01).
The Vikings outshot Donegal 7-4 and forced a slim 2-1 edge in corner kicks.
Forster had one save for Donegal, while his counterpart, Tyler Brooks had three for the Vikings.
Next up for the Indians is the District Three Class AA Tournament. They were scheduled to host Kutztown on Monday (Oct. 26) and a win there would put them in Wednesday's (Oct. 28) second round against Lancaster Mennonite.
TENNIS
The Donegal tennis season came to an end last Friday when the doubles duo of Molly Brubaker and Steph Gainer lost in the first round of the District Three Class AA Tournament at Hershey Racquet Club.
The Indians faced Camp Hill's Liz Clarke and Jess Taleff and dropped a pair of 6-2 sets to the number four seeded Lions to see the curtain drop on their solid season.
FOOTBALL
The toils and troubles continued for the Donegal football team as it hosted Northern Lebanon on a sloppy, rainy, windy, Homecoming night last Friday and fell, 27-8, to the Vikings.
Things started off pretty well for the Indians as Drake Brumfield and Ryan Boccagno recovered Northern Lebanon fumbles on the Vikings' first two possessions to give the Indians good field position at the NL 48 and 39, but, in what would be the case for most of the game, the Indians offense could get nothing going and went three-and-out, failing to take advantage of the short field on both series.
The Vikings, however, righted their ship and, managing to hold onto the football, scored on their next three possessions to take control of the game.
Colton Ryan (14 carries, 82 yards) put the Vikings on the board on a nine-yard burst with 2:16 left in the first quarter and then Tanner Dresch (11-120) went back-to-back with a 50-yard burst with 6:49 left in the second period and a two-yarder with 2:41 left to send the Vikings into the intermission ahead comfortably, 20-0.
The Indians never did find any offensive answers to the NL defense in the first half as all six of their possessions went three-and-out without any first downs.
It was more of the same after the break as the Tribe's first four series again failed to produce a first down as the Vikings continued to dominate defensively.
Northern Lebanon got back on the board with 2:51 left in the third period when Dresch took an 11-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Brenton Yost to complete his hat trick and boost the Vikings' lead to 27-0.
The Indians averted the shutout when they finally scored on their final series of the game.
Starting at their own 46 after committing a holding penalty on a Viking punt, the Indians went 54 yards in 13 plays, using up the final 6:12 of the game.
Caleb Stoltzfus (3 carries, 9 yards), who carried the ball three times for nine yards in the drive, capped the march with a one-yard dive into the end zone.
The Indians ran the ball 10 times on the drive, but the key plays came from quarterback Michel Robinson. The first was a three-yard scramble on fourth-and-two from the NL 46 and the other two were passes to Taylor Nauman and Stoltzfus for 17 and 25 yards, respectively. Nauman's completion was on a second-and-eight from the NL 41 and Stoltzfus' catch was on a key fourth-and-14 from the NL 28 that set the Indians up at the NL 3.
Stoltzfus then went two yards on the next play and, after Robinson spiked the ball to stop the clock, went the final yard to get Donegal on the board with just two seconds left in the game.
Robinson then hit Mike Shipman on the two-point conversion to set the final score at 27-8.
The Indians finished the night with just 74 yards of offense on 32 rushing (36 carries) and 42 passing on Robinson's completions to Nauman and Stoltzfus.
Adam Rohrer led Donegal in rushing with 17 yards on seven carries, while Greg Hake (3-8), Stoltzfus (3-9), Johnny Martin (3-6), Brumfield (4-4) and AJ Pacano (6-3) also put yards in the Donegal column. The Vikings, however, pared 15 yards off the Tribe's total with four sacks of quarterbacks Matt Kolp and Robinson.
The Vikings finished the victory with 235 yards on 197 rushing and 38 passing.
The win lifts the Vikings to 3-2 in Section Three and 5-3 overall, while Donegal slips to 1-4 in the section and 1-7 overall.
Next up for the Indians is a trip to Elco Friday night. Elco is 4-1 and 7-1 after handling Annville-Cleona, 34-0, on Friday.
