By Adrianna Clinton Co-Editor-in-Chief After her highly anticipated return to the track last season, Angelica Gonzalez has determined her home for the next four years, committing to East Carolina University to run Division I Track. Angelica Gonzalez never expected to receive any scholarship offers from colleges after she was plagued with numerous injuries in her sophomore and junior years. During her freshman year, Gonzalez lit up the track. She was a county champion and district runner-up in the 100 and 200-meter dashes, as well as a state medalist in those same events, and qualified for nationals. Along the way, she was dubbed “Freshman Phenom” and “Speedy Gonzalez” as she broke three school records, four invitational records, and a county and district record. But after experiencing two severe, unexpected hamstring injuries her sophomore year and slightly injuring the same muscle during the peak of her season at counties her junior year, Gonzalez thought she “lost everything.” Regardless, she still gained the interest of many Division I schools, including UPenn, Bucknell, Virginia Tech, Cornell, Brown University, Michigan State and East Michigan. Among those schools was also East Carolina University, where the track star recently committed. “[East Carolina] is beautiful, in the South, D-I, and has state of the art facilities...as far as the track program, they’re knowledgeable and like a really big family. The town around it has a lot of school pride, too,” Gonzalez said. After spending a weekend at the campus in North Carolina, meeting with the coach, and receiving an “overwhelming” scholarship offer, “Tears welled up in my eyes and I got emotional. I didn’t think I would get anything,” Gonzalez said. East Carolina is part of the American Athletic Conference, and is known for having not only good academics, but also a good track program. Last season, women’s track and field took home first place at the Conference USA Championship, and the Pirates also sent 10 athletes to the NCAA Outdoor National Championships, a school record. “I’m proud to represent Red Lion there and to be one of the few students here to go D-I...we [Red Lion] should be noticed. We’re not just ‘old Red Lion.’ This school got me where I am,” Gonzalez said. Some noteworthy alumni of East Carolina include actress Sandra Bullock and New York Jets running-back Chris Johnson, as well as Red Lion’s very own Mr. Matt Dennish, who competed as a distance runner at East Carolina and is now a physical education teacher at the high school. In his time with Red Lion, the 2004 graduate set the 800-meter school record (1:54.7) at the YAIAA championships and finished second at districts in the 1,600. At the collegiate level, Dennish was regularly a top finisher in both cross country and track contests. “She is a great talent and has a lot of potential...ECU is an excellent fit for her. I’m proud that Red Lion has an athlete joining the Pirate family,” Dennish said of Gonzalez’s commitment. Other notable college commitments so far this school year include Paige Taylor to York College for Division III field hockey and Jenna Hevner to Shippensburg University for Division II volleyball.
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By Adrianna Clinton Co-Editor in Chief Despite coming into the season with mostly underclassmen starting for the field hockey team, the girls still pulled together a 9-4-1 league record and qualified for District III play. Senior captains Paige Taylor, Kendall Lookingbill, Taylor Bosley, and Sierra Bohlen provided good leadership and helped lead the young, inexperienced team towards success against very strong field hockey teams around the league. Though they missed out on counties, the girls still had a “solid, strong finish,” head coach Carol Gillmen said, as they finished in the top three in Division I. The team showed a lot of perseverance when they played many close games or fell behind and had to come back and win. They had big wins against South Western and North Eastern, and “played phenomenal on senior night against Spring Grove,” Gillmen said. Despite losing 2-0 in their District III playoff appearance against Governor Mifflin, the team had good passing combinations at times and had a lot of offensive penalty corners, the best opportunity to score in field hockey because there are twice as many players on offense than on defense, occurring when the defense commits a foul inside the shooting circle, that were just not capitalized upon, according to senior captain Taylor Bosley. Next season, the team will have a “whole group of sophomores and freshmen with a season as varsity under their belt,” Gillmen said. Jayla Godfrey will be returning to varsity as a senior after having 14 goals and four assists this past season. Sophomore Jena Everett is another highly anticipated return for the Lady Lions, who recorded four shutouts in her first varsity season as a goalkeeper. “It was my first year on varsity and I didn’t know what to expect...I’m really proud of how far we did go, I was glad to go to districts,” Everett said. By Taylor Bosley Staff Writer After finishing the regular season 12-2 the girls volleyball team of Red Lion brought back a silver medal from county championships Oct 21 after earning second place against Delone Catholic. Despite the loss the Lions still have many games to look back on that they can be proud of. Along with getting second in counties, senior Jenna Hevner notes other defining moments of the ladies season including their game against Central. “We were both undefeated at the time so that was the hardest but best game we played,” said Hevner, “Also that was the game we played with the most intensity and we were so pumped.” Hevner also views their senior night game against Dallastown as a highlight of their season. “Dallastown thought they had it in the bag and thought they were going to win,” said Hevner,” said Hevner, “But we pulled through and won in four games.” Sophomore Lindsey Blevins called their recent game against York Suburban during counties a defining game of their season. “It was our first math in counties and they are a very good team,” said Blevins, “But we played very well and serve reserve was good so we shut their team down and we came out on top.” On Oct 25 the Lions traveled to Hempfield for a District match up against Waynesboro and came out on top winning all four games. The season ended for the Volleyball team with a loss to Elizabethtown in the second round of Districts. With the silver medal won in counties and making it to the second round of District play the girls have a succesful season to look back on and represented Red Lion well. By Taylor Bosley
Sports Editor As the NFL continues to hand out punishments to players for off-the-field offenses, the debate on the consistency of their disciplinary measures is growing, and more players are starting to join in on the conversation. In February earlier this year, a video was released of former Ravens running-back Ray Rice dragging his unconscious then-fiance out of an elevator at an Atlanta Casino. After the video was seen by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the Ravens coaching staff and the public, Rice was given a “harsh” two game suspension and received lots of backlash from around the league. After the NFL brought the hammer down on Rice, Cleveland Browns wide receiver Josh Gordon was also suspended for an entire season after he tested positive for marijuana in the offseason. That was later reduced to 10 games once the NFL implemented a new drug policy in the wake of Gordon’s crime. Current and past NFL players expressed their opinions on both players via Twitter after Rices’ suspension was announced. Former NFL center LeCharles Bentley expressed through a tweet on Sept. 8 that he thinks Ray Rice should be in jail, and showed disapproval toward the original lenient suspension of two games. He also mentioned in the tweet that he would rather have Josh Gordon on his team, who was suspended for the season for failing a marijuana drug test, than a guy like Ray Rice who was accused of domestic violence. Ray Rice was eventually given an indefinite suspension and cut from the Ravens when the footage of Rice actually striking his girlfriend was released by TMZ. Terrence Knighton of the Denver Broncos also expressed his opinion of the punishment given to Ray Rice through Twitter. “That man should be thrown out the the NFL and thrown into jail. Shame on those deciding his punishment. Smh,” tweeted Knighton, going on to say that if there is a way to open the case back up it should be done. Other instances of inconsistent punishments in the NFL include when Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was accused of sexual assault in 2010 in Georgia by an unnamed woman. The NFL gave him a six-game suspension, which would eventually be brought down to four games after he convinced Roger Goodell that he had turned his life around, reported USA Today. Terrelle Pryor, who played for the Ohio State Buckeyes and was involved in an autograph-for-money scheme, had a suspension from college carried over into the NFL. He was given a five game suspension as a result and rather than serve that his senior year, he opted out and entered the draft. Roger Goodell took the college punishment and transferred it over to the NFL; he did not want people thinking they could hide behind his league to get out of punishments. Junior Dominico Vano, a color commentator for RLA-TV football game productions, feels the punishments for rules broken in the NFL do not match the act committed. “I think they [the NFL] should be more consistent in their punishments,” said Vano. As a result of the harsh criticism the NFL has received since Ray Rices’ suspension, the NFL has now implemented a new domestic violence policy, a six game suspension for the first offense and a lifetime ban for the second offense. By Allie Burd Staff Writer The Red Lion Competition Cheerleading (RLC) squad is back, and ready to conquer bigger and better things. Last season, the cheerleading squad was able to attend county champoinships at Dallastown High School and take home the 2013 County Champions title in the Co-ed Division. In Sept. 2014, Red Lion High received their very first yellow Competition Cheerleading banner for the Fitzkee gym. In addition to the accomplishment at counties, last year RLC qualified for states in Hershey, and were able to take home 5th place out of 15 co-ed squads. The squad is coming back this year with an even bigger goal- to qualify for nationals. To qualify, RLC will be competing on Dec. 6 in Kutztown, Pa. If they qualify, they will have the opportunity in February to go to Disney World in Orlando, Florida to compete with schools from all over the US for that grand, national title. That following afternoon, Red Lion will travel back to Dallastown to try for the 2014 title of county champions. “It would be really awesome to win counties again and put 2014 on our banner as well.” RLC Coach Ms. Ashleigh Reinert said. To top that, the squad is also hoping to qualify for districts in Hershey at the end of January yet again, with hopes that they can place even better than they did last year. This season, the squad will be using instructors from the Universal Cheerleading Association (UCA) to create their routine. “UCA will know how to max out the score sheet and play to our strengths.” Ms. Reinert said. UCA judges all high school competitions including districts, and hosts cheer camps that the cheerleaders attend annually. Having a UCA based routine will be very beneficial for the squad. On top of the squad having a newly based routine, Johnnie Tamny, four year RLC competition cheerleader says, “This year, everyone will be used to the best of their ability. The squad will have stronger tumbling, jumping, dancing, and flyers.” “The squad and I are very excited for this season, I think we’re going to be a very strong team,” said Ms. Reinert. “Coming off of a good year, everybody is pumped to get back into it.” |
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