2010-11 YAIAA season in review: Part 2
We posted the first half of our end-of-the-season retrospective last weekend. Now it's time for Part 2. Here they are, the top five moments of the 2010-11 YAIAA scholastic sports season... ******** 5. Milestones for Nicholas, Schrann Two of the most prolific basketball players in the YAIAA's recent history -- one boy, one girl -- wrapped up their careers this season, but not before making a bit of history in the process. Eastern York's Andrew Nicholas capped his fine four years by becoming the YAIAA's all-time leading scorer. Nicholas passed Jacob Iati's four-year-old record in his final home game, dropping a career-high 41 points in a District 3 playoff victory against Middletown. The 6-foot-6 wing, who will play at Monmouth next season, finished his career with 2,504 points. "I don't worry about individual stuff," Nicholas said after the game. "Today was about getting the victory. The record came along today, it was a good feeling ... but we played really good today." Meanwhile, York Catholic's Kady Schrann (above) fell one game short of a fourth straight trip to the Class AA state final, but still cemented her place as one of the finest players the area has seen. The point guard, who has signed with Vanderbilt, passed the 2,000-point mark in a senior-night win against Biglerville, and ended her career with 2,162 points. Overall, it was a hoops season full of significant scoring milestones. Dallastown's Four McGlynn, a Vermont commit, became the leading scorer in his school's history by racking up 1,854 points. Meanwhile, Mount. St. Mary's commit Kelvin Parker secured his place atop William Penn's career scoring list by finishing with 1,451 points. 4. YAIAA makes a splash at the District 3 hoops championships In the recent history of YAIAA basketball, it's hard to recall a stronger, across-the-board showing than the league had this winter at the District 3 basketball championships. Over a three-day span at Hershey's Giant Center, seven York-Adams teams competed in district title games. Of those seven, four took home gold medals. Among them: - The York Catholic girls won their sixth consecutive Class AA district title by beating Delone Catholic, 61-45. The Irish became the second District 3 program to win six straight titles, joining the Class A Lebanon Catholic girls (1999-2004). - The Red Lion girls snagged their first District 3-AAAA title since 1992 in typical, defense-dominant fashion, smothering Wilson for a 39-20 victory. The win delivered longtime coach Don Dimoff his first district crown. - The Hanover boys' earned their first Class AA crown in school history, nipping Delone, 54-51, in a classic contest. Pete Yingst finished with 24 points, and hit the go-ahead 3-pointer in the final minutes. - Finally, in the weekend's finale, William Penn, led by head coach Troy Sowers (above), used a brilliant, end-to-end showcase to overwhelm Red Land, 69-58, and give the Bearcats their first district championship since 1995. Add it all up, and you have the most successful District 3 playoff showing in the YAIAA's history. The league had produced four district champions once before (in 2007). But even that year, the YAIAA only had four district finalists. 3. Marsteller, Conaway win state wrestling championshipsFor one, it was a resounding finish to a freshman season that fulfilled its hype. For the other, it was a long-awaited crescendo to a fantastic career. For both Kennard-Dale's Chance Marsteller and New Oxford's Jordan Conaway, the PIAA wrestling championships provided quite a few memories. Marsteller, the freshman phenom, tidied up his perfect season by winning the 152-pound Class AAA title. Conaway banished away sour memories from past state tournaments by grabbing the 112-pound Class AAA crown. Both did so in dominating fashion, too. Marsteller (42-0) ground out a 9-4 win over Bradford's Mark Havers, a former state finalist, in the championship bout. It was Kennard-Dale's first PIAA championship. Meanwhile, Conaway registered his own convincing victory, dropping Canon-McMillan's Conor Schramm, 10-4. Conaway, who will wrestle at Penn State next year, finished his career with a record of 146-20. 2. Red Lion, Dallastown football rivalry reaches new heights It's not often we see high school sports turn into spectacle. But for two Friday nights last fall, that's exactly what we got. Dallastown and Red Lion, two backyard football rivals, clashed in a pair of unforgettable matchups. The setting for those games was like few you'll see at the high school level, complete with boisterous, overflow crowds that stood three or four deep around some parts of the field. The first of the two games, a Week 10 matchup with a Division I title on the line, produced one of the best high school football games you'll ever see. Dallastown fell behind 22-0 in the first half, then rallied for a frenzied, 38-36 win. That victory clinched a 10-0 regular season for the Wildcats, along with the top seed in the District 3 Class AAAA tournament. Two weeks later, Red Lion got its payback. The two teams met back at Dallastown in a district quarterfinal. This time, the Lions dialed up a second-half surge, grinding out a 14-6 victory in front of another massive crowd. Red Lion advanced all the way to the district final, where it crashed into perennial power Cumberland Valley. Regardless, those two electric contests won't soon be forgotten. Lots of games attract hype. These two actually lived up to it. 1. Central York wins PIAA Class AAA volleyball title All season, the focus had remained the same. The Central York boys' volleyball team had never forgotten its premature exit at the 2010 PIAA championships. The disappointment. The frustration. The Panthers had remembered it all, had bottled it up and waited for the right time to unleash it. When they returned to State College this spring, the Panthers found their redemption. Central York, which had hovered near the top of the state rankings all season, played its best volleyball at the right time. After surviving quarterfinal pool play -- the same stage they had blundered through last year -- the Panthers rolled past two of the state's top programs on Saturday. Central York beat District 3 tormentor Hempfield in the semifinals, 3-1, then stormed past North Allegheny, the state's No. 1 ranked team, in four games in the Class AAA championship match. "The way we played today was absolutely better than any other time we played the whole season," senior Paul Kuhn said. "We picked the exact right point to peak." The championship was the fourth in Central York's volleyball history, and its first since 1985. It was also the first state title for Panthers coach Brad Livingston. "When we were up here a year ago," Livingston said afterward, "we knew the goal was to get back, and make it through the first day, and then play our hearts out. And they did." The victory represented the YAIAA's first -- and only -- team state championship during the 2010-11 scholastic season. Not a bad way to finish the year out. ********************* Disagree with the Top 10? Feel like we left something out? Chime in using the comments section.