High School Playbook

Just weeks ago Cumberland Valley and Central Dauphin gave us the game of the year: a rollicking, rollercoaster ride that was eventually won by the Rams.

The Eagles are hard at work getting ready for the rematch, but this isn’t the first time the teams have met in the playoffs. The Eagles and Rams have went helmet-to-helmet in the playoffs twice before, with the Eagles winning both times.

So will Cumberland Valley use this game to get payback from a loss to Central Dauphin in the regular season?

When you talk about the volleyball State Championship you always know Hempfield is in the mix, both boys and girls.

The girl’s marched into the state semifinals and took on Allentown Central Catholic and lost a heartbreaker! The Black Knights dropped the final set 16-14.

Big congratulations to the Hempfield girl’s volleyball team for a standout season!

Before we head into district play, we need to find out where teams stand in the Great 8 poll.

1. Bishop McDevitt
2. Manheim Central
3. Lancaster Catholic
4. Susquehanna Township
5. Delone Catholic
6. Wilson
7. South Western
8. West York

And don’t forget about the following eight teams waiting to crack into the great 8, in no particular order:

• Upper Dauphin
• Central Dauphin
• Cocalico
• Hershey
• Penn Manor
• Littlestown
• Central York
• Cumberland Valley

Week 1  |  Week 2  |  Week 3  |  Week 4  |  Week 5  |  Week 6  |  Week 7  |  Week 8

The Colts aren’t used to practicing this late into November. In fact, they haven’t practiced this late in the season in 13 years – the last time they were in the football district playoffs.

“These kids don’t remember the last time Cedar Cliff was in the playoffs,” said Head Coach Jim Cantafio. “That was 13, 14 years ago. Some of them were still in diapers so for these kids, it’s a heck of an experience!”

This is only Coach Cantafio’s 2^nd year with the Colts and he’ll be leading the team against number 4 seed South Western, and the team has a pretty good feeling about it.

You can follow all of the football district playoffs matchups here >>

It’s the last week of regular season play for high school football and while some teams have secured a spot in the playoffs, most still have a lot on the line. Find out who’s heading into the postseason and who’s hanging up the cleats. 

GAME OF THE WEEK: Cumberland Valley vs. Central Dauphin: Both teams were tied for the top spot in the Mid-Penn Commonwealth but at the end of the night, only one remained on top.

Eastern vs. Northeastern: Big game for the Bobcats as they say goodbye to a special class of seniors, but they couldn’t shake off Eastern all night.

Indian Valley vs. Lewistown: It was a battle for the Old Iron Kettle and Indian Valley owned the gridiron.

Manheim Township vs. Hempfield: With a win tonight the Black Knights would have a chance to hit .500, but the Streaks were on a roll in this cross-town rival showdown. 

Milton Hershey vs. Trinity: Trinity was eyeing to lockup the Mid-Penn Patriot crown, but Milton Hershey was riding high on a 6-game win streak.

Tri-Valley vs. Upper Dauphin: A Trojan victory would give Upper Dauphin the conference title outright, but if Tri-Valley pulled the upset there could be tri-champions.

Newport vs. Halifax: Halifax took on Newport and was looking for its first win of the season.

Littlestown vs. West York: The Bolts fired up their offense to hand the Bulldogs their first loss of the season.

ELCO vs. Lancaster Catholic: The star QBs of the L-L - Kyle Smith and Aaron Achey - squared off in a game that turned into a second half shootout.

Garden Spot vs. Manheim Central: Unbeaten Barons faced off with winless Garden Spot and the Barons scored quickly and in surplus. They finish the regular season at 10-0.

Millersburg vs. Juniata: Millersburg flexed its muscles and knocked off Juniata for a spot in the playoffs.

Central York vs. York: Central York topped York High in its season finale.

Bermudian Springs vs. York Catholic: The Irish held on to beat the Eagles in the final minute of the game.

Middletown vs. Palmyra: The Liberty Division title was on the line as the Cougars and Blue Raiders faced off.

Cocalico vs. Solanco: Solanco needed a win to score a spot in the district playoffs, but the Eagles’ offense came up big.

Central Dauphin East vs. Cedar Cliff: Cedar Cliff needed a win to cash in a playoff bid, and the Colts rolled past CD East with no problems.

And in cased you missed it, here is a Thursday Night backyard rivalry between Mechanicsburg and Red Land.

Students taking calculus and statistic at Northeastern High School got to witness a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: hatching chicks!

The statistics class focused on a hatch rate to find the average amount of chickens that hatch from a group.

On the other side, the calculus course looked at exponential functions when looking at cell division. They also focused on the symmetry of the eggs to prove the white/yolk theorem. The students created an ellipse and found an equation of the ellipse, then calculate the slope of the tangent line. While the eggs were hatching, the students took the egg and drew a rough graph to calculate the tangent lines. Finally, they computed “e.”

So why not just bring in a dozen eggs from home? Because that wouldn’t be as much fun!

The opportunity to see a total of20 eggs hatching has raised awareness as to where food comes from and the process of development.

Students were also shown a video from Penn State University that shows the history, development, and the process of chickens.

To check out this cool opportunity as a slideshow, click on the image below!

WGAL High School Playbook presents Student Voices, a hand-picked selection of some of the best student articles written for high school newspapers.

We asked student newspaper advisers from across the Susquehanna Valley to send us their best articles from the latest edition. Out of the bunch, we selected the top 3 articles based on the topic’s originality and overall pizzazz!

Before we get into the top stories let’s kick things off with 10 Random Facts, written and compiled by Lampeter-Strasburg’s Josiah McClary.

Ten Random Facts by Josiah McClary, Lampeter-Strasburg

1. Rats can last longer without water than camels
2. A 2 x 4 is really 1-1/2" by 3-1/2"
3. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries.
4. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave
5. A squash ball moving at 150 kilometers per hour has the same impact of a .22 bullet.
6. An office desk has 400 times more bacteria than a toilet.
7. The best time for a person to buy shoes is in the afternoon. This is because the foot tends to swell a bit around this time.
8. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w film down so you could see his moves
9. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.
10. The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments

Compilation sources:

http://www.robinsweb.com/humor/strange_things.html

http://www.amusingfacts.com/

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