MILLERSVILLE -- Dallastown needed some extra time at the beginning of Thursday's District 3 boys' lacrosse quarterfinal at Penn Manor's Comet Field.

Time to realize it was just another game, the 22nd of the season.

And time to remove those playoff jitters.

But Hempfield wasn't about to wait for them. The Black Knights were too busy scoring five first-quarter goals.

It wasn't the complete difference in the 12-6 Hempfield win, but it played a heavy influence.

"We knew coming in here we couldn't take a slow start, and they got on top of us pretty quickly," Dallastown coach Chris Andrews said. "We tried to play catch-up the whole game, and you can't do that against the top teams in the district and the state."

The Wildcats got away with a slow start on Tuesday, when they beat Elizabethtown to win a district game and advance to the quarterfinals for the first time in school history.

And they got away with it last weekend, too, when they beat West York to win the YAIAA tournament for the first time in school history.

But in a year full of historical milestones for the Wildcats (20-2), their second loss of the season set new goals for future teams to overcome.

"We set the bar for Dallastown," senior Patrick Conroy said. "The underclassmen now know how far the bar is and how much further they can go. It's now their turn to keep pushing it."

The record and the higher seeding was all seventh-seeded Hempfield (16-5) knew about the fourth-seeded Wildcats coming in.

"We knew we were going to have to slow it down and wait for the great shot instead of a good shot," Hempfield coach Dave Ondrusek said.

The first quarter seemed to run on a schedule for the Black Knights. Work the ball around the top, and drop back behind the goal sometimes, too. And keep possession of the ball.

Every two minutes, they found the back of the net to jump out to a 5-0 lead at the end of the first quarter.

"When we started picking a couple of goals, it started boosting our confidence and had us saying, 'Yeah, we can do this!'" Ondrusek said.

The Wildcats responded in the second quarter with three goals, but it already felt a tad too late, especially when the Black Knights were matching them goal for goal.

"At first we were going a little too fast and a little too hard. The butterflies were sticking in us," Conroy said.

Conroy led the Wildcats with two goals, including a nifty shot that pushed between the goalkeeper's legs as he ran from behind the net, and was falling down, with 47 seconds remaining in the first half.

It allowed the Wildcats to trail by four, 7-3 at halftime.

Senior captains CJ Bosch and Andrew Meier led Hempfield. Bosch finished with four goals and two assists. Meier had three goals and an assist. The two have been leaders since freshman year, Ondrusek said.

Junior Cameron Kline had three goals for the Black Knights.

Hempfield will play L-L League champion Ephrata 5 p.m. Tuesday at Lower Dauphin Middle School in a District 3 semifinal.

Ephrata, who beat Cumberland Valley, 8-6, earlier in the night, has beaten Hempfield, a league rival, twice this season. Ephrata won the first game 13-4 and the second 9-7.

"We closed the gap," Ondrusek said. "Hopefully the third time is the charm."
  
at Comet Field
Penn Manor H.S.
HEMPFIELD 12, DALLASTOWN 6
Hempfield  5  2  4  1 -- 12
Dallastown  0  3  1  2 --   6

   First Quarter -- 1. H, Andrew Meier, 8:48; 2. H, Matt Senft, 6:32; 3. H, CJ Bosch, 4:30; 4. H, Zach Ward (Bosch), 2:11; 5. H, Cameron Kline (Meier), :58.
   Second Quarter -- 6. Dt, David Dygert (Jacob Mitchell), 9:56; 7. H, Bosch, 5:37; 8. Dt, Tyler Wise, 1:31; 9. H, Andrew Meier, 1:15; 10. Dt, Patrick Conroy, :47.
   Third Quarter -- 11. Dt, Conroy, 11:06; 12. H, Kline, 4:29; 13. H, Meier (Bosch), 3:37; 14. H, Kline (Nick Valentino), 2:48; 15. H, Bosch, 1:50.
   Fourth Quarter -- 16. H, Bosch, 10:31; 17. Dt, Tanner Ierley (Conroy), 3:18; 18. Dt, Wise (Mitchell), :13.
   Shots -- H 44, Dt 29.
   Goalies -- Hempfield, Dylan Risner (8 saves); Dallastown, Trevor Zero (8 saves).