Central York regroups from weekend defeat, downs rival Northeastern

John Clayton | GameTimePA

By the time they met in the YAIAA regular season finale Wednesday night, both Central York and Northeastern were already plenty familiar with each other. The two rivals had already met three times in tournament play, with Central York winning the first two meetings. But this past weekend at a tournament in State College, Northeastern rolled to a 30-24, quarterfinal victory against. It figured to provide the Bobcats with a bit of momentum heading into Wednesday much-anticipated meeting. But it turns out Central York laid the foundation for its 28-26, 36-34, 25-18 sweep of Northeastern with its work in practice this week... In order to better prepare for Northeastern's attack, Central tried a new method: It's coaches dug out some old jerseys, finding numbers that matched the ones worn by the Bobcats' starting. It then put those jerseys on its reserve players -- a scout team, of sorts -- and had them simulate what Northeastern's players do. Over a pair of three-hour practices on Monday and Tuesday, the Panthers prepped for every attack and offense set the Bobcats could offer. "It began with (our assistant coaches) accumulating lots and lots of film," Panthers coach Brad Livingston said. "They broke down film ad nauseum, put together a scouting report. We dug up some jerseys somewhere that, when we put them in rotations, we were seeing some actual numbers. "Hopefully that was able to burn into the kids minds, 'They're going to be here, they're going to do this.'" By the time Wednesday rolled around, Panthers senior Paul Kuhn said, "We knew them in and out." Having two full days of practice to prepare didn't hurt, either. Certainly, Central's defense seemed to step up. The Panthers made Northeastern work for many of its points and closed out two of the three games on blocks. Kuhn and Spencer Ortmyer each had three stuffs. Who knows if the numbered jerseys had anything to do with that. "You still got to line up and play them," Livingston said. But any mental boost helps, especially coming off that loss last weekend.

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