Columbia opens with Hempfield

It’s been a while since the Columbia girls’ basketball team has been among the contenders in the Lancaster-Lebanon League.
A combination of things have taken the Tide girls from the penthouse of girls’ basketball in the L-L League to the first floor, looking to move on up again.
One, Columbia’s talent level has dropped off. It’s not that the Tide doesn’t have talent, they do. They just don’t have enough of it. Plus, the rest of the L-L League has gotten better.
For example, the Tide’s schedule includes six teams that played in the state playoffs last year, plus three others that qualified for the district playoffs. That represents 14 of the Tide’s 22 games, that will be against playoff teams from a year. It also includes only one game in the Warwick Tournament, which could increase that number to 15.
Coach Lisa Tomsheck’s team opens the season tomorrow night by hosting its own tournament. All four teams, Columbia, Lampeter-Strasburg, Hempfield and Central Dauphin East made the District 3 playoffs a year ago, but Columbia was the only one not to advance to the state tournament.
“Our opening tournament has extremely good competition. We open the tournament with Hempfield, who is the reigning L-L champs. The other teams are L-S, who I think is the strongest team in the L-L League because they did not have a senior on the squad last season and CD East, who made a good run in the state tournament,” Tomsheck said.

Read more in this week's Columbia Ledger.

Tide girls are in

The Columbia girls basketball team clinched a District 3 playoff spot with their win over A-C last night.

With the final deadline tomorrow for teams to qualify or move up in the power ratings, the girls are right now, the 9th seed, meaning they would play the eighth-seed, Camp Hill, if the playoffs were to start today.

Anyone remember what happened the last time the Tide and Camp Hill played a playoff game?

Official brackets will be released on Sunday.

Girls Update

The Columbia girls' basketball team played its next-to-last home game of the regular season last night against Lebanon Catholic.

First a comment. It wasn't that long ago when the two small schools played each other in girls' hoops, the game was actually played before a full house. Last night, you probably could have put all the fans in one section of the bleachers up on the hill.

Lebanon Catholic won the game 70-52. The Columbia girls played hard and at one point in the third quarter used a 1-3-1 half court trap to get back into the game.

Lebanon Catholic has enough talent to win the Class A District 3 title.

Girls numbers

Offensive avg: 41.8
Most points scored: 58 vs. Annville-Cleona
Least points scored: 29 vs. Central and Lancaster Catholic

Defensive avg: 51.9
Least points given up: 29 vs. E-town
Most points given up: 73 vs. Lancaster Catholic

Avg. win margin: 11.8
Biggest win: 22 vs. Annville-Cleona
Avg. losing margin: 18.5
Biggest loss: 44 to Lancaster Catholic
Closest loss: 4 to Ephrata

Individual scoring
Emily Nobile, 89, 4.9
Jamie Kuhn, 88, 4.8
Laura Gambler, 60, 3.3
Erica Gilbert, 106, 5.9
Mary Wagner, 39, 2.2
Tori Aston, 200, 11.1
Gen Afari, 121, 8.1
Kenyeta Simms, 53, 3.5