Folks might look at Wednesday’s final score of the Ephrata Holiday Tournament championship game and think Palmyra handily thumped the host Mounts in a 6344 victory. But the game was much closer than the score suggests.
Turning point: Following a first quarter that featured five lead changes, Palmyra (9-1) switched from a man-to-man defense to a 1-3-1 zone in the opening six minutes of the second quarter.
Like many sophomores might experience in their first minutes at this level of boys basketball, Ephrata point guard Dilyn Becker had trouble handling the pace of a varsity game around this time a year ago.
“I remember the first time I played varsity, I’m like, ‘There’s so many people here and so many things going on at once — I need to calm down,’” Becker said.
He didn’t know it at the time, but the man from whom Becker was taking instruction, then first-year head coach Charlie Fisher, felt about the same.
Lebanon Catholic made a run early.
Ephrata made a run late.
Perhaps just a tad bit too late.
After her team erased a 16-point deficit, Ephrata senior Kenzie Horst couldn't get a putback attempt to fall with 13 seconds remaining as Lebanon Catholic escaped with a 41-38 victory in a Lancaster-Lebanon quarterfinal matchup in Ephrata on Monday night.
As the third quarter at Elizabethtown was coming to a close Friday night, Ephrata’s Dilyn Becker buried a 3-pointer. On the Bears’ ensuing inbound pass, Zachary McGillan stole the ball and nailed another trey as the buzzer sounded.
Those six points in the final four seconds of the quarter were a microcosm of how the Section Two opener went for the two squads.
Elizabethtown couldn’t find the basket and the Mountaineers couldn’t miss as Ephrata rolled to an impressive 63-39 road victory.
A pair of teams suffering losses in the L-L quarterfinals last season returned to the tournament on a pair of winning streaks. The Section Two champion Ephrata Mountaineers (11-5, 13-9) won seven straight while the Section Four runner-up Lebanon Catholic Beavers (12-5, 16-5) grabbed four straight victories.
"They have some tremendous shooters," Ephrata coach Mike Garman said, "and Patti Hower, I have so much respect for her. She's just an unbelievable coach."
We here at www.ephratamounts.com are proud sponsors of the Dodgeball for Diabetes tournament.