What they're saying: Quotes from the YAIAA
There's nothing like snow in April.
While York and Adams Counties got lucky on Saturday and hasn't been blanketed in white, the weather was considered bad enough for most games in the YAIAA to be canceled.
So with players and reporters being kept off the field, here's a collection of some memorable quotes I've heard so far this season. I'll try to keep doing this throughout the spring, even when the weather stays nice.
"(Biglerville football and track head coach Alex) Ramos jokes around with me whenever I don't score in football that I'm too slow because I don't do track because I play tennis. It's been kind of a joking matter, 'Oh he's a tennis stud because he's No. 1 (singles player) on the tennis team. But it's just me coming out here and being athletic."
- Biglerville's Nate Newberry on March 30. Newberry started both ways for the Canners football team, won regional, sectional and district titles in wrestling and is the top player on the school's tennis team.
"At halftime I saw some of the same looks I saw on their faces last year, where girls were thinking, 'Oh here we go again.' Keeping them fired up is part of my job. But I think they know we can be good. We don't have a very good history here so we're rewiring everybody and getting them in to a new mentality."
- Spring Grove girls' lacrosse coach Jeff Richards following the Rockets 16-9 loss to Red Lion on April 5. Spring Grove went 1-15 last season but is already 3-3 this season.
“I grew up with South Western, I know all the girls. (Mustangs goalie) Laura (Silver), she’s my best friend. She’s an amazing goalie, so it’s always hard playing against her. I was so nervous because I know she’s such as amazing player.”
- New Oxford lacrosse's Braxtin Reddinger following the Colonials 18-8 win over South Western on March 29. Reddinger, who played her first two years of high school at South Western before transferring to New Oxford, scored her 200th goal during the game.
"It was weird. On the way up here she was sitting with me and she was freaking out. I told her, 'You're going to be fine, it's just like any other game.'"
- Delone Catholic softball pitcher Cassie Rickrode on her sister Maggie following the Squirettes 7-0 win over Bishop McDevitt on March 26. Only a freshman, Maggie Rickrode made her varsity debut catching for her senior sister. It was the first game the two ever played in together.
"She always throws strikes, she doesn't walk anybody so they have to earn it. Years ago we never knew what to expect. A girl would throw five strikes in a row and then throw five balls in a row. It's real change having someone who always throws strikes."
- Delone softball head coach Don Smith on Cassie Rickrode following the Bishop McDevitt game.
“I tried to come back and pitch a game (against Eastern York) but my legs knotted up so bad that I couldn’t pitch. I had to be carried off the field. There was a huge knot in my leg and I just couldn’t do it. It was frustrating I sat on the bench and I wanted to be out there helping them and I couldn’t.”
- Hanover softball's Sara Durika on attempting to pitch as a sophomore following an appendectomy that winter. Durika returned to the field this season after missing two straight years.