With the final week of the Lancaster-Lebanon League regular season finishing up Wednesday night, the section title picture is fairly clear in Section Two and Section Three. Section One is partly cloudy, with a chance of an upset.
Manheim Township (6-0 L-L, 12-8 overall) has secured no worse than a tie for the Section One championship with a trip to Ephrata (5-1, 8-7) to close out the league season. Regardless of Wednesday’s outcome, the Blue Streaks can celebrate their first section title in 50 years.
That’s right, the 1974-75 edition of the Streaks won Township’s third straight L-L Section One title and sixth straight title overall, going back to the last three years of the Lancaster County League.
It’s been a long dry spell since then, with the 2011-13 Streaks coming closest to snapping the spell, finishing second to the Solanco dynasty three straight years.
An Ephrata victory cements a three-way tie for the title, including Penn Manor.
One win from locking up the Section Two title, Conestoga Valley (6-0, 14-0) hosts Cocalico (3-2, 9-5) Wednesday. Nothing is guaranteed, but the Buckskins have no worse than a tie for the title, their second straight, after winning Section One in 2024, and sixth in 13 seasons – three in Section One, three in Section Two.
While hoping for the Cocalico upset that would give them a share of the section title, Donegal (4-1, 9-2) hosts Elizabethtown (1-5, 2-8) Wednesday.
With the wind at its back in Section Three, Elco (5-0, 10-1) travels to Columbia (3-2, 8-10) Wednesday. The Tide is having a pretty good season, comparatively speaking, but is no candidate to muck up the Raiders’ second Section Three title in three years.
A closer look
A closer look at the Township-Ephrata matchup starts with this bit of irony. In addition to being famous alumni of the Mountaineer wrestling program, head coach Tim Rice and assistant coach Nick Rock also served in those roles at Township 10 years ago.
From 145 pounds through 285, the Mounts have feasted this year. In Ephrata’s 15 matches the grouping of Brody Musser (18-4) at 145, Noah Tlumach (17-4) at 152, Dustin Hoover (15-4) at 160, Quincy Myer (19-2) at 172 and Kaleb Sweigart (14-5) at 189, along with Ian Ellis (8-9) at 215 and Wesley Jones (5-5) at 285, have outscored opponents 403-125.
They have, as an aggregate, delivered five of the Mounts eight wins.
Township has been relatively steady in these same seven weights, and the team that commands the field here wins the match.
L-L League Tournament glance
The 31st Lancaster-Lebanon League championships begin Friday at Manheim Township High School. Friday’s wrestling is limited to the boys, beginning at 4:30 p.m., and goes through the championship quarterfinals and four rounds of wrestlebacks.
The girls tournament gets underway Saturday at 9 a.m., with the boys rejoining the girls for semifinals, set for 12:30 p.m. The championship finals, both boys and girls, are set for 4:45.
Seven 2024 boys champions are set to return, including Northern Lebanon’s Aaron Seidel, vying to become the seventh four-time champion in the history of the tournament.
Also back are Northern Lebanon’s Sam Wolford, Conestoga Valley’s Abdoul Akala and Tal Stoltzfus, Manheim Central’s Barrett Keiffer and Noah Templin, and Elizabethtown’s Francis Burke.
