Tough Knight on the hill

With some scattered showers, I waited a day to enter this entry, just to dry one for one reason, and two, to digest what happened.

What happened was that Columbia's long win streak over Eastern York is over. On the hill, the Golden Knights rallied over the final five minutes for a 20-14 win over the Tide.

The winning score came with about 49 seconds left when the Knights went to their bag of tricks, or trickeration, hitting a halfback pass for a score.

The Tide's two athletes -- Dakotah Lightfoot and Yahya McIntyre had big games. Lightfoot lit up the crowd returning the opening kickoff for a score, while McIntyre caught a touchdown pass from Matt Kreiser to give Columbia a 14-0 lead seven minutes into the game.

I'll be spending the weekend working on the stats from the game and other stories, which I wil post as soon as possible.

For a complete report on the opener, check out this week's Columbia Ledger.

Two days

Are you ready for some football?

It's just two days to the season opener for the Crimson Tide.

They face cross river rival Eastern at 7 p.m. Friday night, on the hill.

Here's hoping there's a big crowd for the game.

Don't forget the Football Booster Club is holding a Chicken Barbecue from 3:30-6:30 p.m. Tickets are $5.

We'll have a preview of the season in tomorrow's edition. Next week, look for game stories and a preview of the Tide's second game of the season with York Suburban.

Also, don't forget to check out other media outlets who are planning previews. WGAL runs its Football Friday Special tonight at 7 p.m.
Lancaster plans on offering its football preview section tomorrow in the New Era and Friday in the Intell. Their new website covering the L-L League goes on line Friday.

Ready to go

When the Columbia Crimson Tide football team takes the field tomorrow night against cross river rival Eastern, they might have a chip on their shoulders.
That’s because despite going 8-3 and qualifying for the District Three playoffs and losing 18 seniors, many think this will be a rebuilding year for the Tide.
Everyone but the players that is.
“We want to do our best in every game and not take any team lightly,” said junior captain Brandon Felus, who was one of Columbia’s representatives at the L-L League Media Day, two weeks ago.
Added speedy running back Jason Combs, “we want to try to do better than last year’s team and make it to the next round of districts.”
So, despite losing players such as quarterback Mike Seibert, running back Ben Guiles, wide receiver Colby Tuell and all-state performer Brian Groff and others, who were instrumental performers in last year’s team, the players are expecting big things in 2008.
“This team can be very good,” Felus said.
“It all depends on how hard work everyone puts into it,” Combs said.
The Crimson Tide lost a dozen starters from last year’s team. Returning starters are Felus, Rafael Mendez and Kevin McCarty in the trenches; Combs, Dakota Lightfoot, Yahya McIntyre and Derrick Smith in the skill areas.
Newcomers expected to play key roles are quarterback Matt Kreiser, fullback Joey Charles and lineman Bobby Schoelkopf and Brandon Aukamp.

Vandalism at HS

Columbia Superintendent of Schools Dr. Barry Clippinger said the opening of schools on Monday went well.
“We had a smooth opening of school today at all three buildings for students and staff,” Dr. Clippinger said.
But, there was one problem that didn’t have a thing to do with students or staff. For the second time in two weeks, school vehicles parked in the east parking lot on the high school campus had windows broken out by someone who shot a BB gun. Dr. Clippinger said the latest incident happened Sunday night after 11 p.m.
“ This happened about two weeks ago and again last night (Sunday),” Clippinger said.
The Columbia Police and the school district are investigating the incidents. Damage estimates are unavailable.
“Windshields were damaged and a side window on a van was shattered,” Clippinger said of the Sunday night incident.
Clippinger said the district’s new food service delivery truck was damaged by Sunday’s attack.
“Our new refrigerated food service truck was hit with damage to the windshield and small bb dents to the front body,” Dr. Clippinger said.
The damage was also reported to the district’s insurance carrier, Clippinger said.
Anyone who may have seen the damage is asked to call Columbia Police at 684-7735.

Cross country preview

There’s a change in the Columbia cross country program and it can only be for the good.
There’s a new coach and a new way to train. About the only thing that stayed the same was a lack of numbers for new coach Charles Leader and assistant Don Groom.
They take over for Frank Wagner, who resigned after one season as the Tide’s coach.
“We are looking for more runners. We need runners in grades seven through 12,” Leader said.
“We had some kids that got physicals, but they haven’t been at practice,” the new coach said.
Like all sports at the high school, prospective runners have until Tuesday to get their physicals and paperwork handed in.
Members of the team, both boys and girls, are Alan Foehlinger, Derek Zercher, Tony Barton, William Meyers, Cody Danks, Cody McAllister, Brittany Knighton, Rachael Knighton and Rebecca Kuhns.
McAllister, a senior, and Brittany Knighton are the only experienced runners for the Tide at the varsity level. Leader said recently that the Tide had a full boys’ team, while they were lacking numbers on the girls’ team. Columbia needs five runners on each team to compete as a team in meets.
“We had a few runners move up from the junior high,” Leader said.
Columbia opens its 2008 season Tuesday with a quad meet at McCaskey, also involving Warwick and Lebanon.

Tide drops opener

The Columbia girls’ tennis team opened its 2008 season Monday, losing to Solanco in a non-league match 7-0.
The starting singles’ line-up for the Tide against Solanco were Laura Gambler (a 6-0, 6-0 loser to Janelle Krentz); Adrienne Zercher (a 6-2, 6-1 loser to Julie Herr); Megan Murphy (a 6-0, 6-0 loser to Keri Swisher); Sara Burke (a 6-0, 6-0 loser to Laura Metzler) and Allison Michener (a 6-1, 6-0 loser to Gemma Brady).
In doubles, the duo of Gambler and Zercher lost to Krantz and Swisher, 8-0 and the team of Burke and Murphy lost to the team of Keeport and Metzler, 8-0.

New band director

This is part of Cheryl Stansbury's story that appears in this week's Columbia Ledger.

The Columbia High School Band has a new leader.
Scott Muenz was hired out of pool of 42 applicants for the position. In addition to instructing the band, he will also serve as a music teacher at the high school.
Muenz replaces Robert Richards, who was charged in April for allegedly having sexual relations with a student. Richards, recently, waived his preliminary hearing before District Judge Robert Herman and is waiting to stand trial in Lancaster County County.
Muenz first day at Columbia will be Aug. 21.

Good luck

For the first time in recent memory, Columbia High School’s list of graduates contains more than 100 names.
The Class of 2008 will receive their diplomas tomorrow night, as graduation is held, beginning at 7:30 p.m., at the Crimson Tide Stadium. Weather-permitting, it will be the first graduation held in the stadium, which is three-years-old. If the weather doesn’t allow for an outdoor graduation, it will be moved into the high school auditorium, where tickets will be needed.
There will be three student speakers for the graduation -- Derrick Armold, Alison Busby and Jamie Kuhn, who are the top three students in the Class of 2008. The class was honored earlier this week when the Senior Recognition Banquet was held Tuesday night in the high school cafeteria. Baccalaureate for the Class of 2008 will be held tonight at St. James Lutheran Church, 10th and Manor streets at 7 p.m.

CHS Hall of Fame

They are coaches, they played in major college football bowl games, won a national football championships and showed plenty of “Tide Pride” when they won the crimson and gold. Meet the first class of inductees into the Columbia High School Athletic Hall of Fame.
The first induction ceremony for the new Athletic Hall of Fame, will be held Friday, Sept. 19 when the Crimson Tide takes on Lampeter-Strasburg in a big Section 3 football game at Columbia. There will be a reception for the new inductees prior to the game and a halftime ceremony.
The inductees included Jack Yohe, “Cy” Young, MIke Burke, Ken Campbell, Ted Carey, Thomas Donan, Hiram Fitzgerald, Hubie Peters, Walt Price, Jerry Raifsnider, Elmer Kreiser, Jim Smith, Les Schoelkoph, Harry Smoker and the 1941 football team.
The Hall of Famers were nominated by the community and chosen by the Hall of Fame Committee of Charles Reinhart, Wayne Hershey, Rich Gerfin, Dennis Bachman, Jim Smith, Carl Morrow, Barry Ford, Mickey Rupp, Jodie Eck and Karen Kuhn.
The committee said that those former CHS athletes, who had their uniforms retired -- Bob Bell, Mike Wisler, Danny Monk, Marjorie Rhoads, Chip Beaston Ryan Stephenson, Ron Smith, Jerome Ellis, Scott Raymond, Abby Smith and Ryan Strickler are also considered as members of the Hall of Fame.
Reinhart, who chaired the committee, said there were others that were nominated for the first class and they will be considered for induction next year. Any community member who would like to nominate someone for the Hall can contact a committee member.