Old friend Harold Ziegler was back on the baseball beat Wednesday at Wenger Field near Northern Lebanon High School, where Warwick took on Manheim Township and Hempfield squared off against Red Land in District 3 Quad-A baseball semifinal games. One Lancaster County team broke through to the finals — Warwick, which outslugged Township. Here’s Zig’s story from Thursday’s New Era:

FREDERICKSBURG — Manheim Township beat Warwick on the final day of the Lancaster-Lebanon League’s regular season to knock the Warriors out of the league’s postseason baseball tournament.

Did Warwick ever deliver a payback Wednesday night.

Motivated by their absence from  the league playoffs — and two regular-season losses to Township — the Warriors pounded the Blue Streaks 11-3 in a District 3 Quad-A semifinal at Wenger Field.

The game was a completion of Tuesday’s suspended game, which a thunderstorm halted in the middle of the first inning with Warwick up 2-0.

Township eventually got even at 2-all, but Warwick scored nine runs over the final three innings and pulled away.

The No. 4-seeded Warriors, now 16-6 overall, will take on Red Land in the District 3 Quad-A championship game today at 4:30 at Hershey High School.

No. 2 seed Red Land (18-4) kept it from being an all-L-L League final by beating No. 3 seed Hempfield 7-5 in the first game of the doubleheader here.

Township, the top seed, will meet Hempfield at 6:30 tonight at Ephrata’s War Memorial Field for a berth in States next week.

Hempfield (19-5) beat Township (22-3) in the L-L League title game two weeks ago.

“Definitely not making the league playoffs was a disappointment,’’ Warwick DH Skylar Gingrich said. “We had those two weeks of practice to just sit back and see what we wanted to get out of this season. We had a couple team meetings. We thought we were due to make something happen.’’

It was Gingrich who was the catalyst over a span of 24 hours. He belted a two-run homer in the first inning Tuesday. He then delivered a two-run single to snap a 2-all tie last night in the fifth.

He finished the game 3-for-4 with five RBIs and two runs scored.

Second baseman Mark Stuckey went 3-for-5 with a three-run homer and two runs scored, while pitcher Jason Griffith scattered four hits in a seven-inning complete game.

Warwick finished with 13 hits.

“It was a big mental thing,’’ Griffith said of the early 2-0 lead. “We had lost to these guys twice already this year, so getting that mental boost — ‘OK, we can play with these guys, we can start to play with a little bit of a swaggar’ — really helped us out.’’

Cameron Gallagher smacked a two-run homer for Township in the fourth to tie it at 2, but Warwick exploded for four runs in the fifth.

Gingrich’s single knocked in two, another came across on a bases-loaded walk, the fourth on a hit batsman with the bases jammed.

“I told the kids if we get back to tie, we’d be in pretty good shape,’’ Township coach Bill Sassaman said. “I thought we’d just run it out and win it.’’

Warwick had lost three of its last four regular-season games, but coach Mike Brown reminded his team that Donegal last year won a district title after failing to make the L-L League playoffs.

Now Warwick has won three in a row in Districts and is one win away from its first district baseball title.

“All you can ask for is an opportunity, and we have our opportunity,’’ Brown said. “So let’s make the most of it.’’

Red Land 7, Hempfield 5

Hempfield pounded out 10 hits as its bats stayed hot — that’s 29 hits in three district games.

But three errors and below-average pitching cost the Knights.

Lefty starting pitcher Brandon Hinkle could have had a 1-2-3 third inning had he picked off Tyler Fettrow at first base. Fettrow had already broken for second, but Hinkle threw the ball away.

Four singles followed, and later Hinkle walked in two runs. Before it was over, Hinkle was pulled, Red Land had a 5-0 lead and was off and running.

John Moser, Brett Houseal, Brandon Kline and Derek Dornes all had two hits apiece for Hempfield. Kline also had three RBIs.

“I don’t know if we deserved to win,’’ Hempfield coach Jack Merrifield admitted. “We didn’t pitch as well as I thought we could have. We were behind in the count. The inning they scored five, we got ourselves in trouble. So did we deserve to win? Probably not. We played better baseball throughout the year.’’