Current Conditions
35°F - CLEAR
(2364) (1404) (1235) (546) (513) (204) (55) (21) (19) (11) (9) (6) (5) (5)
For the length of this season, they sought to return to the top of the Lancaster-Lebanon League's heap. Prior to last season, the Black Knights had been there for six straight seasons.
Last season, though, Hempfield was defeated by Garden Spot in the league semifinals.
Wednesday night, the Black Knights returned to the league's summit, defeating the Spartans 3-0 at Manheim Township High School for their seventh L-L crown in the last eight years.
"We really wanted to bounce back," said Hempfield senior Megan Forbes, who led the Black Knights with 13 kills. "We wanted to prove to everyone and ourselves that we were better than what we did last season."
Forbes, an outside hitter, is part of a triumvirate of seniors including Ellie Ressler (outside) and Riley Kratzer (setter). Their experience helped the Black Knights through the roughest patch of the match, the latter stages of the second game.
After winning the first game with relative ease, 25-11, the Black Knights suddenly had a match on their hands when Garden Spot became more aggressive.
"I told the players going into the game that Hempfield was a big favorite," said Garden Spot coach Denny Werner. "I told them to just go for it."
Whether the aggression took Hempfield by surprise or not, it knocked the Knights off their game.
"We did lose our focus," Forbes said. "But we were able to gain it back and regained our momentum."
The Spartans led the second game 20-17 when the Knights rattled off three points, the last coming on a block by Forbes, to tie the game at 20-20. With the game tied at 23-23, Garden Spot's Lauren Horst (team-high 11 kills) sent a spike to the back corner to give the Spartans a 24-23 lead.
But Spot suffered its second serving error in the latter half of that game, tying the score at 24-24. Hempfield's Rachel Lenz (six kills, four blocks) then put up a block and when the Spartans could not pass Ressler's serve, the Black Knights had withstood Spot's charge and won 26-24, taking a 2-0 lead in the match.
"We missed two serves and you can't do that (with the score) in the 20s," Werner said.
That's where the experience, or lack thereof, comes into play.
Hempfield had it and was able to pull out that game. The Spartans, starting only one senior, couldn't draw on anything to help them in that situation.
The Black Knights, however, drew on the confidence that comes with winning a close game and took the third, 25-18, for the sweep.
"It's different than last year," Werner said. "Last year, if we were down 2-0, I had two all-state players and several three-year starters on the bench. They know they can come back. This crew, no matter how much I say they can come back, they've never done anything like that before."
Hempfield had done that before and it served them well.
"It's the maturity of the whole team," said Hempfield coach Pat Shawaryn. "The seniors are absolutely the heart of the team. They don't let the underclassmen drop their level of play and they made the plays when they had to."
Forbes wasn't worried that a coaching change might derail her plans to retake the league title. She was anxious to play for Shawaryn, who she understood to be a demanding coach.
Shawaryn knew what he was walking into as the new coach. His predecessor, Mike Vogel, had set the bar high.
"You just tell the girls, it's that time of the season when you put the banners on the wall," Shawaryn said. "They respond or they don't, and tonight they did."
Notes: Along with winning the league title, Hempfield secured the league's top seed for the District Three Class AAA tournament. Garden Spot is No. 2 and Conestoga Valley No. 3.
