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Township strikes fast to claim L-L title
- 23 October 2005
Tick. Tick. Tick.BOOM!
Another day, another three-goal explosion for the Manheim Township soccer team.
Another Lancaster-Lebanon League championship.
The Blue Streaks (16-2-1) successfully defended their L-L title with a 5-3 verdict over Ephrata, dealing the Mounts their first loss of the year.
It was Township's seventh league title overall and third in the last six years.
Playing in an occasional downpour and persistent shower Saturday afternoon at Pequea Valley, Township exploded for three goals in the first eight minutes of the second half to open a 4-1 lead.
It was the second game in a row where Township took command of a game with a sudden, three-goal flurry, having buried Elizabethtown in Thursday's league semifinals.
Saturday, Ephrata (17-1-1) got off the deck and made a game of it, pulling to 4-3 with 22 minutes to play.
With momentum on their side, the Mounts attacked and, with 15:00 to play, nearly had the equalizer when Dan Hagey got behind keeper David Flynn and sent a loose ball rolling toward the line.
A line guarded by Cameron Bertel, who kicked the ball out of danger.
"I don't know what happened back there," the senior sweeper said. "There was a little fumble ... and I'm glad it worked out."
It also worked out for Austin Good, who led all scorers with a pair of goals.
The first came in the 46th minute, with Township up 2-1, when he happened upon a ball skittering across the left slot and tucked it inside the left post.
Screened by Streak striker Bryan Hogan, keeper Paul McHenry never saw the ball until it was past him.
Good later scored the final goal of the game on a penalty kick after Hogan was tackled in the box by defender C.J. Wilson.
It was an unplanned return to a former haunt for McHenry, who was the Mounts' starting keeper as a freshman and sophomore.
He earned All-Star status at striker as a junior -- and should repeat this year -- but an injury to starting keeper Josh Peifer in Thursday's semifinals forced McHenry back to the nets.
Township tested him in close time and again. Davey Miller put Township up 1-0 when he lasered a quick shot inside the right post in the 16th minute.
Ephrata evened the match five minutes later when McHenry stroked a penalty kick after Nick Zacharias crashed Mounts midfielder Dan Szabo in the box.
It took 93 seconds of the second half for Township to reclaim the lead.
Ephrata defender Alex Wilson blocked a shot by Justin Brown, with the ball going over the endline for Township corner kick.
Jared Harris' corner rolled through the box to Max Kinderwater in a crowd, and Kinderwater tapped it between McHenry and the left post.
Four minutes later Good scored and three minutes after that Nick DeMasters pounced on a feed from Hogan pounding the ball past McHenry from eight yards out.
Ephrata got one goal back two minutes later. After a Township foul Tom Renko sent the free kick into the low left corner.
Eight minutes later Dan Hagey headed Renko's corner kick between Flynn and the right post to make it a one-goal game.
"It would've been easy for our guys to say, 'All right, let's roll over.' I love their heart. They don't stop," said Mounts coach Chris Jahnke.
Neither did the Streaks, who have learned many valuable lessons this season while trying to create a separate identity from last year's state semifinalists.
"Last year was great and it's hard to overcome ... all this big hype," said Hogan.
"We wanted to prove that we were a team that had its own character," Good declared.
"We started out real bumpy," allowed Bertel, thinking back to a 0-1-1 start in Section One play. "But as the season went on we started to click."
"We didn't necessarily play poorly," said Streaks coach Dave Ammon, "but we didn't get the results that we wanted.
"Our kids have turned the season around. I still think we have some room to improve, but I see us playing better and better each step of the way."
Township's next step is the opening round of the District Three tournament, which begins on Wednesday.
The second-seeded Streaks will host 15th-seed Carlisle (10-8-2) in a 3:45 p.m. contest on Ed Journey Field.
Ephrata is the top seed and will host 16th-seed Cedar Crest (10-9-1) at 7 p.m. at War Memorial Field. The Mounts downed the Falcons 2-0 in a hard-fought league semifinal match.
We here at www.ephratamounts.com are proud sponsors of the Dodgeball for Diabetes tournament.