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.
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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.” By Taylor Bosley
Sports Editor The start of the new school year also means the start of another season for fall sports teams. The Red Lion girls soccer team will be starting a new season with new faces on the varsity team, as fourteen seniors graduated, and also new faces in the coaching department, Carlos Mendoza as head coach and Victor Torres as Junior Varsity coach. “I knew that a few of my friends played for Coach Mendoza before and said he was a good coach and would be great for our senior year.” said senior soccer player Hailey Gunnet on their new head coach, who is joining Red Lion after previously coaching for Cedar Cliff High School. Since Coach Mendoza isn’t familiar with the group of girls he will not be able to set specific goals until he gets to konw his team’s strengths. Once he is familiar with who is he working with he will be able to set goals in stone. Although Coach Mendoza doesn’t know the girls he will be working with, he has certain rules that he is already planning on telling them regardless. That includes a high fitness level, competitive play and above average skill work on the field. Another thing he expects is “to not pushed off the ball,” a term commonly used in soccer. Coach Mendoza feels he can better everyone on the team. “In the end I feel they can learn from me and better as an individual and a group.” he said. By Ben Otte For The Leonid Just before Memorial weekend in May, Matt Zimmerman decided to resign from his head coaching position at the Red Lion girls high school soccer program. This was the first step Zimmerman took in order to take an open coaching job at the Dallastown high school boys program. Zimmerman took over the Red Lion program back in the fall of 2011 and hopes to have instilled a sense of "intensity" over the years, according to the interview. You can watch the interview below: Junior Angelica Gonzalez returns to the winners’ platform after suffering a major hamstring injury almost a year ago. By Adrianna Clinton Staff Writer As most athletes know, coming back from an injury is never easy; overcoming the mental boundaries, pushing through the physical pain, and not giving in to the injury are all parts of the rehab process, one that junior track star Angelica Gonzalez is all too familiar with. Following her highly successful freshman season two years ago, no one imagined that the road ahead for Gonzalez would be filled with injuries--injuries that could possibly destroy her career. Her first of two unexpected hamstring injuries came in late December during her very first indoor invitational as a small strain. The second occurred during block starts in practice, where she experienced a stage two hamstring strain. Success was all Gonzalez had ever known, and the setback she experienced put her in an uncharted place in her career. Gonzalez became a well-decorated athlete during her freshman year as she was a county champion and district runner-up in the 100- and 200-meter dashes. She was also a state medalist in those events, qualifying her for nationals. She earned the names “Freshman Phenom” and “Speedy Gonzalez” after breaking three school records, four invitational records, and a county and district record, respectively. And have colleges come calling. Gonzalez has gained the interest of numerous Division I schools, including University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Virginia, University of Miami, University of Alabama, the Naval Academy, Harvard, Yale and Duke. The expectations for her sophomore year were high after having such extraordinary success as a freshman. Her own hopes were even higher. The thought of being plagued with hamstring injuries before she could get her sophomore season off the ground and running never crossed her mind. “I thought I was on top of the world and I was Superwoman, I could do anything, I could push through any pain and it would be fine the next day,” Gonzalez said. “Then I realized there were some things I couldn’t push through.” After suffering her previous two injuries, her comeback was highly anticipated. Entering her first meet back, Gonzalez felt “amazing.” Little did she know that her return would be cut short. “In the blocks, I was confident, but then halfway through the race at the 50 meter mark, I felt a sharp pain...my leg just gave out under me.” Gonzalez went down with small tears in the same hamstring muscle, marking her third and most devastating injury, ending her sophomore season for good. “It felt like I was down for a lifetime, but it was only a few seconds.” Struggling to complete the race, she collapsed on the ground in a daze after crossing the finish line. Trainers rushed around her, giving her ice and helping her off the track elsewhere so no one could see her: “I was a mess.” The rehab therapy that followed lasted very long. Despite it being over a year since the first injury occurred, Gonzalez is still not 100 percent recovered, not just physically, but mentally. As a new season approached, the memories of what happened “absolutely terrified” her for the first race back. “It’s really scary not knowing where I’m at because I won’t know until I actually race,” she said. “When I went down at Central [York High School], the pain and the humiliation of it was one of the worst feelings ever and I do not ever want to relive that again.” Throughout the recovery process, Gonzalez had a hard time coping with the reality of her situation. The treatment turned track into a burden, instead of being something she loved to do. Nonetheless, the injury didn’t stop her from supporting her teammates on the track. While watching her team from the bleachers, all she wanted to do was race. As districts came, Gonzalez saw girls running races with slower times than hers. “I could’ve won,” she said. There were many times when Gonzalez lost hope in recovering and often thought to herself, “What happens if I don’t get better and I can’t sprint like I used to?” And times where she cried herself to sleep because of what happened. On one occasion, she put her medals away in a box because of the constant reminder they were to her of what she could not have. “Because of my freshman year, I was known for track. That’s how I was defined,” Gonzalez said. “Track was who I was. It was like I lost my identity, I didn’t know who I was anymore.” It wasn’t until she was playing tournament softball this past summer with her friends that she got her identity back and found sight of why she runs on the track: “I run for my friends, I run for my family, and I run for me.” As she moves forward from the injury, Gonzalez has set new goals for herself for the remainder of her high school career in the hopes that she fully recovers. On her list, she hopes to break and rebreak county, district, and state records in the 100 and 200, as well as become a state champion in those events. Nationals are on the list, too, as well as placing in the “top five, maybe even the top three” at the national level. After high school, Gonzalez hopes to attend a Division I school and in the back of her mind, she contemplates possibly pursuing an Olympic career path, depending upon her success for the remainder of high school and through college. In the meantime she is still rehabbing, participating in separate workouts in the weight room, working on deadlifts, squats, lunges, bridges and power cleans in an effort to fully restore the health of her hamstring. Later this season, she hopes to run the 100 again. Additionally, Gonzalez continues to “perform well.” Though she can keep up with her teammates in practice, she is trying to get back into the swing of things slowly. In her first meet back for her junior year debut, Gonzalez picked up where she left off her sophomore season, finishing with first places in the 200, 400 and long jump. “It was more than I expected. My goal was just to be able to finish my race. Winning was just icing on the cake,” Gonzalez said about her first spring track meet back from her injury. “It was more than I had hoped for.” Just recently Gonzalez earned first place points on the Red Lion homestretch versus Southwestern in the 100 (12.0), 400 (58.3) and 200 (25.3) meter races contributing to yet another Red Lion girls’ track and field YAIAA Division-One crown. By Taylor Bosley Staff Writer Seniors Taylor Sprenkle and Blake Cahill are among ten Red Lion athletes who will continue their sports careers at the next level. The athletes made their official commitments along with eight other classmates Friday, Feb. 7, at the Red Lion Athletic Department Winter Signing Day. Both Sprenkle and Cahill will be moving on to Millersville University. Sprenkle said she looks forward to join her older sister, Tori Sprenkle, at Millersville University to play soccer. “I’m really looking forward to it since we’ve always played together,” she says. Sprenkle remarked that the number of Red Lion athletes going to the next level to play sports reflects positively on the athletic program. She says that having eight sports recognized reflects positively and demonstrates balance between all programs. “These signings show the strength of Red Lion in all sports. There is a large variety of athletes from different sports and it definitely is beneficial to the school,” Sprenkle said. Sprenkle isn’t the only senior bringing their talents to “The ‘Ville”. Football standout quarterback Blake Cahill will be attending the university in the fall to take part in their Division. II football program. After Cahill suffered a torn ACL, MCL and sprained meniscus versus Dallastown in a rival showdown at the end of last football season, he was worried colleges who have shown interest in him prior would not be any longer. “Millersville stayed strong on talks with me through the injury,” Cahill is healing ahead of schedule. Cahill, the latest football recruit since 2011 grad Andrew Zeller, also said he feels blessed for the opportunity to represent Red Lion at the collegiate level. In addition to the Millersville Cahill-Sprenkle duo, other signings included Hayden Jennings (Arcadia University-Lacrosse), Ali Posey (York College-Field Hockey), Alyssa Castle (Slippery Rock-Field Hockey), Zach Neff (McDaniel College-Soccer), Morgan Kuehne (York College-Basketball), Jared Warner (Kean University-Volleyball), Andrew Erickson (York College-Cross Country/Track) and Kylie Strong (Drexel University-Soccer). Red Lion athletic director Arnie Fritzius said he was very proud of all of the student athletes who signed for they demonstrated excellence among the athletic program and among the school as a whole. “All of these students are as active on the field as they are in the classroom.” |
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