Category: Sports

Jess Burkhart sunk much of her competition  March 17, as she came in eighth place at the state level swimming competition.

It was her first state medal.

“I am very proud of her,” said Burkhart’s coach, Cece O’Day. ” There hadn’t been a female state champion for swimming in 16 years. This was amazing.”

Burkhart achieved a personal best time of 24:05 during the 50-meter freestyle, bettering her time by just one crucial second.

“At that (state) meet I was competing against 32 people,” Burkhart said, “but there were levels [to the competition] so it was like I was competing against the whole state.”

And Burkhart has learned that to be good, a swimmer needs to put in the miles.

“[Swimming] takes up all your time. I practice twice a day because I’m a part of the school team and a YMCA club team,” Burkhart said, “and I have about three meets a week. It doesn’t leave much time for anything else.”

However, all this swimming glory comes with a price.

“Practices are really tough,” said Burkhart, “and having practice all the time is really tiring.”

Because of her medal performance at states, Burkhart gets the chance to do a little traveling.

April 5 – 10, Burkhart will be swimming at the national competition held in Florida for the YMCA club team on which she swims.

At the competition, Burkhart will be competing in the 50 and 100-meter freestyle events.

But Burkhart isn’t just interested in the awards.

“I was 6 when I started swimming,” she said. “I guess I’m just naturally talented. I do it for fun, really.”

By Lindsey Ostrum

Connelly won the AMA Winter Flat Track Nationals, held Feb. 27 to March 3.

Flat track racing is done on motorcycles with challenging curves and at speeds up to 100 mph.

Being just one class away from the pros, Connelly knew the victory would only bring him closer.

“Its hard work and determination,”  Connelly said of his achievement.  His goal is to race in the pro class by the summer of 2010.

Although winning the championship was great, it was a long, surgery-filled journey to make it there.

In the spring of 2007, Connelly was in a multiple motorcycle crash which put him in the hospital for months. He had to have total intestinal reconstruction and was told he would never race again.

But only six months after his surgery, Connelly was back on the track, only to be let down once more.

He suffered a shoulder injury in a similar wreck, which put him out of racing for the next few months.

Making his return in the fall of 2010, Connelly had only two months to train for the national championship.

When the weekend of the race came, Connelly and his parents drove to Florida in an RV where he stores his 3 bikes.

“You have to have an open mind, expect nothing,” said Connelly about how he felt going into the race.

He raced in the 451cc open class, riding his 2007 KX 450F. It was in this class that he won the national championship.

While at the event, he also entered in some of the other classes including the 251-500cc DTX and the 450cc mod. In those events he raced his 2009 KX 450F.

After all the injuries and surgery he had to go through, Connelly said he was only able to overcome the setbacks because of  the help of his family and sponsors including Spa and Pool Place in Willow Street, Lancaster Harley Davidson and Don’s Kawasaki.

“I couldn’t do it without them,” he insisted.  “They got me where I am today.”

By Paul Slaugh

The five-foot-six, 125-pound, lean, mean wrestling machine of Penn Manor represented us well.

With a 36 and 6 win-loss record in the regular season, Bobby Rehm made it all the way to the state championship wrestling tournament, in the 125-pound weight class.

At states, once you lose your first match you go into a consolation match, which was the case for Rehm, losing both matches in the final seconds.

“My teammates made of fun of me,” said Rehm after returning from states, “but seriously, they supported me all the way.”

Rehm grew up in a wrestling environment, his father wrestled in high school and his parents support him all the way.

“I let my nerves get to me,”  said Rehm, explaining his losses in the early rounds.

He also described his first time at states and how awe-inspiring the tournament was.

There is definitely something positive that comes out of this experience, Rehm said.

He is only a junior, so next year he may be miles ahead of the state champion hopefuls who have never been to states.

Bobby looks forward to competing next year for the state championship, and wants to continue his wrestling career after high school, wrestling for a college.

Luckily for Rehm, he works out in the off season so he won’t have to cut too much weight for next year.

By Zane Sensenig

Memphis, Connecticut, and defending national champions North Carolina headline the National Invitational Tournament. North Carolina and Connecticut both went to the final four last year with the Tarheels winning it all.

Mississippi State, with a 23-11 record,  had the biggest snub, by not making the NCAA tournament. The Bulldogs had a chance at an automatic bid but Demarcus Cousins sent the game into overtime and after that, it was all Wildcats that took an emotional 75-74 win. The Bulldogs will face Jackson state in their opening game.

Mississippi State easliy beats Jackson State in its opening round game of the NIT. Jarvis Varnado scored 20 points and grabbed 11 boards to lead the Bulldogs to an easy win. They will face  North Carolina on Saturday.

UCONN looked like a strong contender  in February but heads into the NIT taking on Northeastern. They head into the NIT with four consecutive loses, along with a four seed.

UCONN will head into the second round of the NIT after coming back to beat Northeastern. They were led by guard Jerome Dyson, who scored 18 points. He scored UCONNs 11 of its last 13 points, to erase a six-point deficit.    

Memphis, with a three seed, is scheduled to play St. Johns in their opening round game.

Virginia Tech and Illinois head into the NIT, their names were not called on Sunday. They are number one seeds along with Arizona State and Mississippi State.

Tech will face off against Quinnipiac.  The Hokies had a better ACC record than Wake Forest who made the Tournament.

Arizona State will face off against Jacksonville in the first round of the NIT. The Sun Devils finished second in the Pac 10 conference.

The Sun Devils’ postseason dream comes to an end on a 24-foot jump shot.  Devils’ senior guard, Derek Glasser, missed his second of two free throws with 8.6 ticks left, giving them a 66 -64 point lead which they thought was the end. But the Dolphins’ junior guard, Ben Smith, pushed the ball down the floor and hit a game ending three to give Jacksonville ther first postseason win.

The Tarheels were seeded fourth and went against number-five seed William and Mary. The game was close but,, at the end, it was North Carolina celebrating on their home floor because of a 72 – 80 victory.

Illinois the last number-one seed will face Stony Brook tomorrow.  

By Sam Valentin

College basketball players may be forced into facing their toughest enemy of all this March: college.

U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan is proposing that teams have to face the facts, and their textbooks.

Duncan believes that if college basketball teams can’t carry out a graduation rate above 40 percent for their team members, then teams should not be eligible to participate in the March Madness tournament.

“That’s a low bar,” Duncan recently told USAToday. “If you can’t graduate two out of five of your student athletes, how serious are you about the academic part of your mission?”

If this rule came into play, 12 of the teams in this year’s tournament would not be able to play, resulting in far less talent being able to compete.

These teams include the number-one seeded powerhouse Kentucky Wildcats and two other highly ranked participants, Baylor and Maryland.

Maryland, which is a number four seed this year, has the lowest graduation rate: only 8 percent.

Eliminating these teams from competition could devastate the overall skill and talent that enters the tournament every year.

This gets you thinking; what if brackets were based on best in the class, not the actually court?

A possible outcome of this would be BYU, Duke, Marquette, Notre Dame, Villanova and Wake Forest becoming perennial teams (even though they generally are) in the tournament. All of their graduation rates are at 90% or above.

Another surprising statistic is that these graduation rates do not even include players that leave early for the NBA draft, or players that transfer in and out of the programs.

Although this rule may seem  a little far-fetched, Arne Duncan still believes it would be the more collegiate thing to do.

By Simon Zimmerman

In one of the biggest upsets this year, Saint Mary’s Gaels went to the big dance as an automatic bid. The Gaels upset 14^th ranked Gonzaga in the West Coast tournament.

But don’t worry, the Zags will still make the tournament as an at-large team.

The 12th-ranked Butler Bulldogs will get an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament instead of an at-large bid they would have gotten if they would have lost.

Wofford Terriers also clinched an automatic bid by beating Appalachian state and winning the Southern Conference. It’s the first tournament appearance in their history, this includes Nit and NCAA.

Siena rallied to come back and win an overtime thriller against Fairfield to win the MAAC title.

Old Dominion reserves their spot in the big dance again by beating William and Mary in the CAA final.

Robert Morris wins a back and forth game against Quinnipiac 50- 52 to win the Northeast conference tournament and to go to the NCAA tournament.

Montana heads to NCAA tournament after beating Weber State in the in Big Sky tournament final on the back of Senior guard Anthony Johnson’s 42-point night which is a record in the Big Sky tournament.

Winthrop beats Coastal Carolina in the championship game of the Big South and apparently they want Kansas. Winthrop fans were were chanting this as time wound down.

East Tennessee State wins its second straight trip to the Tourney by topping Mercer in the final of the Atlantic Sun conference.

Cornell wins the Ivy league with an easy win over Brown.

With a second-half surge, Northern Iowa beats Wichita State in the Missouri Valley Conference to send them to the tournament.

In the Ohio Vally conference, Murray State wins against Morehead State to give them their 3oth win of the season and, more importantly, an automatic bid to the big dance.

Oakland prepares for the dance after beating IUPUI in the Summit Conference championship. Their coach says they are prepared to mess up some brackets come tourny time.

North Texas’s little guy, Josh White, stepped up and hit the game winner to seal their fate to go to the NCAA tournament by beating Troy by three in the Sun Belt conference.

By Sam Valentin