According to the latest District 3 rankings (posted by Geoff Morrow at the Harrisburg Patriot-News on Saturday morning) 14 Lancaster-Lebanon League girls’ teams qualified for the district playoffs.
Another four teams from Lancaster County earned a spot in the Single-A bracket.
District 3 officials will release the official brackets (with sites and times and play-in game schedules) on Sunday afternoon.
So who will be dancing next week?
QUAD-A: Section 1 champ Cedar Crest (No. 2 seed), Section 1 runner-up and defending Quad-A champ McCaskey (No. 3 seed), Hempfield (No. 4 seed), Warwick (No. 9 seed), Section 2 champ Conestoga Valley (No. 14 seed) and Manheim Township (No. 15 seed).
TRIPLE-A: Section 4 champ and reigning Triple-A champ Lancaster Catholic (No. 3 seed), Section 3 runner-up Lampeter-Strasburg (No. 8 seed) and Section 3 champ Lebanon (No. 13 seed).
Three L-L League teams earned a spot in the field because they finished with a .500 or better record – Manheim Central (No. 17 seed), Elco (No. 18 seed) and Lancaster Mennonite (No. 19 seed) will be slotted into play-in games, and must win to earn a spot in the 16-team bracket.
DOUBLE-A: Columbia (No. 14 seed) is the only local team in this bracket.
Check out the photo of three of the Tide’s top players on the right (Jamie Kuhn, Tara Anspach and Tori Aston).
SINGLE-A: From the L-L League, Section 4 runner-up Lebanon Catholic is the No. 5 seed. Also in are Lancaster Country Day (No. 2 seed), Lititz Christian (No. 3 seed), Lancaster Christian (No. 7 seed) and reigning Single-A runner-up Living Word Academy (No. 10 seed).
Speaking of local teams in the Single-A field … just wanted to pass along an update on a pair of outstanding players who don’t always get a lot of ink:
Heading into the CCAC playoffs, Living Word Academy senior forward Megan Smoker (above, right) has 1,676 career points. She helped lead the Lions into last year’s District 3 Single-A title game. Earlier this season, LWA had its 32-game CCAC winning streak snapped.
And Lititz Christian senior forward Angie Rapchinski (above, left) has 1,902 career points, and could join the exclusive 2,000-career-point club if LC makes a deep trip in the postseason.
Rapchinski, who has scored 29 points in each of her last three games, announced earlier this month that she’ll continue her career at Messiah College.
How good is Messiah?
At last check, Messiah was 11-0 in the Commonwealth Conference and 21-1 overall … and was ranked No. 1 in the nation by D3hoops.com.
Former L-L League standouts Ashley Brooks (Hempfield) and Kristen Groff (Lancaster Mennonite) play for Messiah. I wrote a column on those two ladies earlier this season, and you can find that story on this website. Take a look.
So Rapchinski will be stepping into a great situation – and Messiah will be getting a very good player.
JEFFREY REINHART
