LEBANON — At least Charlie Fisher, Ephrata’s young boys basketball coach, knows now that his young, resurgent team isn’t afraid.
The fearless Mounts played what had to have been their best game in years Monday. It wasn’t enough, however, because Camryn Shaak wouldn’t let Lebanon lose.
Shaak, a senior guard, scored 19 second-half points to help the Cedars rally to a 52-50 win in a dramatic quarterfinal game of the Lancaster-Lebanon League playoffs.
Ephrata was playing its first postseason boys basketball game in 12 years Friday, after its first winning season in 12 years.
Early on, as coach Charlie Fisher admitted afterward, “We were as nervous as could be."
The Mounts got over it. They held off a spirited Columbia rally to advance to the main bracket of the Lancaster-Lebanon League playoffs with a 43-39 win at Conestoga Valley.
Lampeter-Strasburg junior forward Ryan Smith opened Friday’s third quarter with a 3-pointer to push the host Pioneers’ lead to 18 points. Visiting Ephrata promptly committed its second straight turnover. And the boys basketball game appeared all but over.
The Mounts had other plans.
Penn State football fans would have related to Manheim Central boys basketball coach Chris Sherwood on Tuesday night.
As the Nittany Lions were this season, Sherwood had felt his Barons have been very much a second half team thus far.
As the Ephrata Rec Center began to clear out following Thursday’s Lancaster- Lebanon League swim meet, the Ephrata girls lined up on the pool deck one last time.
By the count of the three, the Mountaineers and head coach Mickey Molchany were in the water, splashing away in a celebration six years in the making.
Besting visiting Lampeter-Strasburg 95-75 in its final meet of the season, Ephrata clinched the Section Two title — the team’s first since the 2010-11 season.
We here at www.ephratamounts.com are proud sponsors of the Dodgeball for Diabetes tournament.