With two games into the season, the Penn Manor girls basketball team wants to get on the board with their first win.
The goal they had set out on Thursday was slowly diminished as the Comets fell to a record of 0-2 after losing to the undefeated Elizabethtown Panthers, 26-44.
There were times in the game where the girls looked as they would be going off, but they always seemed to get shut down. Turnovers and missed shots haunted the Comets in their loss.
A winless Comets girls basketball team, “on the season”, will host the Ephrata Mountaineers on December 20th at 8:00pm.
Penn Manor, in the Lancaster-Lebanon Section one, and Ephrata, in the Lancaster-Lebanon Section 2, will both try to climb the ladder in their standings.
Everyone knows it’s a bad start to the season when the loss column is heavier then the win side, but everyone also knows that it only matters how you finish. The girls from Penn Manor are trying to find a way to win their first game, and working really hard during practice to get better.
“Jon Zajac has us working out everyday with bands, tires, and just conditioning that really makes us work. He is becoming a big part of making our team stronger and more athletic,” said Comets’ guard, Abby Newport.
The amount of work and time the Penn Manor girls put into the game of basketball may soon begin to reflect on the progression of their season.
“I want to win states…,” said Bobby Rehm, jaw set, eyes filled with determination, “I want to win everything.”
This must have been the Penn Manor senior’s motto as he helped lead his team to a victory Wednesday night at the team’s first dual match, posting an astounding 52-second pin for the win over Hempfield’s 130 pound wrestler. This was the first dual meet of the 2010-11 season and the Comets are soaring, on their way to a winning season.
“The win was alright but I think we have the potential to have done better,” said Rehm, very hopeful about the rest of the season, “I think we can have a good season if everybody puts in the effort. I want to win states… I want to win everything.”
Also chalking a big “W” for the Comets is another senior and returning wrestler, Evan Singleton. Singleton, who wrestles in the heavyweight division, was also victorious pinning his opponent, although it took about a minute longer than his 130 pound teammate.
Wrestler Bobby Rehm is hoping for an outstanding season. Photo by Ben Embry
“We’re shaping up to have a great season as long as the team continues to practice hard and give 100 percent,” said Singleton. “Solanco will probably be the hardest dual meet of the season, but I’m confident we’ll be able to demolish Columbia, we usually do.”
With last year’s already prestigious record of 29 wins and 9 losses, Singleton certainly has dreams of grandeur.
He wishes to go to states with “as many Penn Manor wrestlers as possible.”
Penn Manor wrestling coach Steve Hess has a positive outlook on the season as well.
(We have the potential as a team to do) “good, and Mr. Rehm certainly has the ability and the drive to go to states and come back with gold. I’m very proud of Bobby,” said Hess.
“We had a pretty good first tournament, placing seventh, and we placed even higher this past weekend, taking home silver,” said the wrestling assistant coach Mike Fowler,” if we hadn’t had so many injuries and forfeited those points we would have certainly done better.”
As the Hollywood star takes a hit of the bong, does she think about the nightmares that might come up if the video is released to the public eye? Will she think about the plethora of kids who consider her their role-model? No. She seems to care more about smoking Salvia, a legal but hallucinogenic drug, to help celebrate her 18th birthday, than her once squeaky-clean image.
Miley at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards Pole Dancing. Photo by nydailynews.com
Miley Cyrus is at it again. Horrifying her parents, shocking fans, making parents rethink Hannah Montana completely.
Her father, the 90s country heart throb, Billy Ray Cyrus, posted on Twitter once he saw the video, “Sorry guys. I had no idea. Just saw this stuff for the first time myself. I’m so sad. There is much beyond my control right now.”
While the young Cyrus is up to her antics, students and staff at Penn Manor seem to be as disappointed in her as her parents.
“I would never let my daughter look up to her as a role-model anymore,” assistant principal, Eric Howe said.
“Miley Cyrus is supposed to be a role-model for young children,” senior Melissa Martin explained, ” This was a horrible thing for her to be taped doing and I hope she gets in a lot of trouble.”
In the past couple of years, Miley has gone from being the perfect role-model for the younger generation to just the opposite. Since she started growing into an adult, she’s changed dramatically from the icon of wholesomeness as a Disney Channel star that many parents had been happy their children looked up to.
“If I had kids, I would let them look up to Hannah Montana, but Miley Cyrus is a different story,” senior Leah Freeman said, “but then again nobody’s perfect.”
Miley has proven to the population that she is growing up. She’s pole danced during her performance in the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, she sent around pictures of her being scandalous to her, at that time boyfriend Nick Jonas, she took pictures for a magazine with her dad and some where she was only wearing a shear sheet, she gave a lap dance to her director of The Last Song, and now she has the video of her taking hits from a bong.
Miley Cyrus taking a hit off of a bong. Photo by hollywoodhumor.com
“I think if you are that famous, you should be more careful about what gets out,” junior Joey Jackson said.
“People like controversy because that’s what sells,” said Cyrus in her interview with Bazaar Magazine about her pole-dancing incident at the Teen Choice Awards.
“My job is to be a role model, and that’s what I want to do, but my job isn’t to be a parent,” said Cyrus during the interview. “My job isn’t to tell your kids how to act or how not to act, because I’m still figuring that out for myself. So to take that away from me is a bit selfish. Your kids are going to make mistakes whether I do or not. That’s just life.”
Junior Marc Summy has never seen the video, but said, “it will tarnish her reputation she had as Hannah Montana.”
The Disney channel star is definitely not living up to the perfect little girl she portrayed in the show. It remains to be seen how this will affect her career.
This year’s only total lunar eclipse is going to be visible in North and Central America early Tuesday morning.
The moon is illuminated at night by the light of the sun, but during a lunar eclipse the full moon passes through the Earth’s shadow which prevents sunlight from hitting the moon to light it up. A small amount of sunlight will still manage to sneak past the shadow and give the moon an eerie appearance high in the sky.
The stages of a lunar eclipse. Photo courtesy of anguishedrepose.wordpress.com
This year, scientists are predicting that the moon will be a more unique reddish brown color instead of the normal orange-yellow glow.
This change is being attributed to the various volcanic eruptions around the world and the large amount of dust and pollution that has been added to the atmosphere in the past year.
From beginning to end, the whole event will last an expected 3 1/2 hours. Once the moon is completely engulfed by the shadows at 2:41 a.m., the darkness will last about 72 minutes with the best time to view the change of the sky being at 3:17 a.m. This is when the moon will be the most extravagant shades of red and copper throughout the entire night according to NASA.
This lunar eclipse is set to fall on the day of the winter solstice, December 21, the time of the year when the earth’s axis is tilted farthest from the sun. This occurrence is extremely rare, happening only once since “Year 1… and that is 1638 DEC 21,” Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory stated on NASA’s website.
Don’t miss this once-a-year happening in the sky, Penn Manor. Set your alarm clocks for 3:17 and take advantage of the first lunar eclipse falling on the day of winter solstice in 372 years.
Strength, patience, dedication and having a steady form.
These are the most important qualities to have when you shoot archery.
Long hours of practice and striving for that perfect score is the goal of every archer. Your frustration grows with every bad shot. It gets you down instantly when you have a bad end. You blame your bow or arrows, anything but yourself.
“Let’s shoot one more end,” my dad would say every time to make me think that maybe just this time we would finally be done.
“I’m tired and I’m starting to shoot badly. My arms hurt too,” I would say back.
“Shoot your best round so we can end on that note,” he would say.
This is the part when patience and strength are key.
I pull back my bow slowly, setting my mind on the gold. I look through my peep site very carefully trying to set on the center. My release is steady and ready to go off. I pull the trigger and follow through. Right when I look up, I see those pink and green veins in the center of the target, just what I was hoping for.
“There’s my best shot all night!” I yell to my dad.
The feeling of a job well done is always the way I like to conclude my hard night of practice. Ends and ends of shooting. Ten to be exact. Ten rounds of three arrows each. I strive for that top score of 300. The practices grow harder and longer, trying new equipment and new routines to perfect every shot.
The best sigh of relieve is achieved when you see all three of your arrows in the center gold. You know you have just shot your best round and feel very prepared for the next invitational or tournament.
Having my dad as my coach makes me feel great because I know I can always talk to him and he is always around. He’s an amazing coach for me and is always helping me to perfect my shot.
Where do you think I learned patience, strength and dedication?
Big play, score. Big play, score. Rinse and repeat.
This will be pretty common come January 10, 2011 in the National Championship game between the Auburn Tigers and the Oregon Ducks.
Both offenses are explosive and speedy, with both averaging a ton of points.
LaMichael James, courtesy of footblog.com
Oregon averages 49.3 points per game, while Auburn averages 42.7 points.
Auburn will be led by Heisman trophy winner Cam Newton, who has been surrounded by a surplus of controversy this year, although no wrongdoing has actually been proven.
Newton has scored 49 TD’s this season, 28 of which went through the air, and 20 on the turf.
Cam Newton, courtesy of businessinsider.com.
Newton has been in the conversation for being one of the best college football players of all time.
Oregon will be led by Heisman finalist LaMichael James, who has rushed for over 1600 rushing yards and 21 TDs.
The big question is who will be able to defend whom.
Oregon will struggle to defend Cam Newton, a duel threat quarterback that has passed for 2589 yds, and rushed for 1409 yds.
His elusiveness, ability to scramble and throw on the run will cause problems for the Oregon defense.
Auburn will be tested by a well-versed Oregon rushing attack led by James and quarterback Darron Thomas, and the nation’s number one scoring team.
It’s easier to see Auburn coming on top on January 10. With an amazing play maker in Cam Newton, and a schedule that screams difficult, Auburn looks to squeeze past Oregon for the National BCS Title.
“All students are to report back to first block for enrichment period, again all students are to report back to first block during this time,” this is what Penn Manor students heard after second block and some of them cringed.
Why all this “enrichment?” What is it supposed to accomplish?
Principal Phil Gale explained a new schedule for Penn Manor High School. Photo by Christa Charles
According to principal Phil Gale, the enrichment activities called, adopt-an-anchor, are when students go back to first block, second block, third block and forth block on selected days.
The purpose of the enrichment is to focus the entire school on certain skills where improvement is needed.
What the students have learned were math problems, which some students struggled with in the past. The students learned how to do scatter plots, slope and best fit line. All in all this helped the students get a good grasp on things and help build their confidence.
As Penn Manor sets forth for another enrichment period, how did they do overall?
Was it worth it? Why and how long do we have to keep doing this?
These are just some questions Penn Manor students ponder day to day.
Although there were complaints before it started, when math was all said and done, many students believe it wasn’t as hard as they thought it would be.
“It was really easy,” said senior Jacklyn Schmalhofer.
Even for a junior, Joey Jackson, who helped tutor kids, the math directions were very clear.
“The way kids completed the math, it looked pretty easy,” said Jackson.
The schedule change made a big impression on staff and students in Penn Manor, shortened blocks every single day, many were not sure how and what to expect. But, they had to do it.
“No idea,” Gale said about how long the enrichment periods would go on throughout the year.
“We did very good overall, people got too worried and stressed out about this,” Gale said. ” It was needed, it was a good review and overall developed better skill.”
As students were worked up about this change, teachers were too. Some teachers haven’t done math since college and they were expected to learn it and teach it.
“Not something they’ve done in awhile, but I was very impressed with the teachers and students working hard,” Gale said.
Krista Cox, Penn Manor’s assistant principal was very impressed on how students helped other students and helped everyone understand things.
After four sessions on scatter plots and linear equations, it was time for the English department to circulate lessons on summarizing and main idea. Same schedule but a few less complaints now that students were in the groove.
“(I learned) to pick out the main idea better in a story,” said senior Amanda Miley.
The question is still pondered, was it successful or not?
“Yes, it was successful, it helped kids understand the concepts, and this will help them do it on a test,” Gale said.
Some complaints were initially heard because the teachers were getting cut, on average, 14 minutes out of their prep periods each day for this new schedule change.
“Some teachers were complaining, but they’re not losing too much time,” Gale said.
Are students losing out on other academic instruction because of shorter blocks?
Are teachers going to try to rush teaching in order to try to complete the things that need to be taught by the end of the semester?
Some of these questions, are still up in the air and could not be answered at this time.
The PSSA test is soon going away and a new state test will be introduced, Keystone Exams.
” Were not gonna talk about that yet, maybe we’ll have to do another article on that,” Gale said.
The Comets boys basketball team took to the court looking for a win, and finished Elizabethtown off with a convincing defeat.
Thursday night was a big game for the team. It was their first home game, and they needed a win to prove that they can still be effective even with five of last year’s seniors gone.
Seniors Dan Elliot, Brian Ramsey and Jaq Presbery, and Juniors Landon Alecxih and Marc Summy are this year’s starters.
Early on, the Comets took advantage of their size in the low post, snagging board after board, not to mention creating 15 turnovers.
Pressure on defense and some good offensive strategy led the Comets to a 63-49 win over the Bears.
“We had some bigger bodies, and Landon did a fabulous job for us,” said Comets Coach Charlie Detz in an article on Lancasteronline.
The hard work from Alecxih gave him a, game high, 21 points along with 7 rebounds. Presbery hit a pivotal three in the third quarter to get the Comets rolling.
And they didn’t stop anytime after that.
Issac Newton’s second law then came into play as the Comets weren’t acted upon by an outside force for the rest of the game. They went on an unanswered 11 point run.
Presbery finished with 8 points.
Elliot was a defensive force, gaining 8 rebounds and 2 blocks. As Elliot was swatting shots, Ramsey had a key steal late in the game for a fast break with a lay up finished by Presbery.
Put away your snow shovels and road salt. La Niña is here to stay.
Last year’s winter was the biggest on record for the Lancaster area. With over 6 feet of snow, the 2007-2008 winter tripled the average precipitation. Snow days were coming by the handful and it always seemed to be white outside. This year however, with the bitter wind and cold temperatures, some are wondering if we should expect the same.
According to Millersville University’s meteorologist Eric Horst, this year’s winter won’t compare. On average, Lancaster county gets about 25 inches of snow each year. This season, the community can expect the same.
“We’ll probably have a winter closer to the the average, maybe even below average,” said Horst.
Horst explained this year’s winter will be very mild. The temperatures won’t be as rough, and the precipitation will be significantly less.
Why is this winter going to be so mild? The culprit, La Niña.
La Niña is a climate factor that periodically warms the ocean temperatures. Because of the warm temperatures, jet streams and weather patterns are affected all over the world.
“La Niña winters typically have a cold start. As the months go by, the temperatures rise. The winter will be a bit warmer than normal, but towards the end colder temperatures will make their way back,” said Horst.
Overall, Horst foresees a very changeable, but mild winter.
“As of now, there are no big storms coming our way,”said Horst.
Despite a La Niña year, we’re still in Pennsylvania, the land of ice, snow and chilly temps.
Earlier this year the freshman, sophomore and senior class had an assembly about the dangers of abusing drugs, including prescription drugs. The presentation was given by the SAP (Student Assistance Program) coordinator, Darrin Donmoyer. The presentation included facts and statistics about the dangers of abusing prescription drugs, second place only to the most common drug of choice among teens, marijuana.
Abuse of prescription drugs has become more prevalent than cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine all combined, according to national statistics.
Some of the statistics could be called terrifying, as emergency visits due to prescription overdose have gone up 300 percent in the country.
“Just because it’s prescribed by a doctor or sold in stores doesn’t mean it’s safe,” said Donmoyer.
Drugs can cause problems for people despite their family and friends, and sometimes because of them.
“Half my family tells me not to do it and the other half shoves a bowl in my face,” one student said about the pressure they feel toward using drugs.
One student said they did it just because it was there, starting with a sister and a couple of friends.
Although nearly every student in the Penn Manor district learned about the dangers of substance abuse in elementary school, some students have tried drugs and alcohol, and despite the known risks, abuse substances regularly.
Some will be caught.
Officer Jason Hottenstein estimated between two and ten students will probably be caught this year in school with a banned substance but “every student knows the consequences.”
Although 20 students openly admitted to trying drugs or alcohol at least once in their lifetime for this article, the good news is, the assumption that everyone is doing it is false.
Donmoyer said a school-wide survey showed only 14 percent of tenth graders have smoked marijuana in the last 30 days and 22 percent of twelfth graders and a mere 4 percent of eighth graders have smoked in the last 30 days.
“I’ve helped students voluntarily enter in-patient and out-patient rehab centers if that’s what they are willing to do,” said Donmoyer. ” I can’t make them do anything they don’t want to. But the assistance is there for them when they are ready.”
At least two students agreed they use drugs to “get away from reality.”
“I’m a concern-free person. When you live on the edge like me, you don’t need concerns,” said one.
But not everyone interviewed had a care-free attitude about drugs.
Another student spoke about the fear of “never waking up again.”
Needles used for some form of drug.
The answers were often blunt and straight-forward.
One student said the only thing that could make them quit would be, “me, myself, and I.”
One of the many students interviewed who had never tried drugs or alcohol said “I don’t want to conform to that lifestyle.”
Though this person admitted to going to parties about once a month, the person said they have never had the desire to do drugs or alcohol.
The Penn Manor students who said they use drugs, mostly used marijuana.
According to government studies, up to 30 percent of teens smoke marijuana. Marijuana, commonly known as weed, pot, hash, and by many other names is one of the most popular drugs.
Surprisingly, several Penn Manor students were more than willing to share how much they enjoy using this drug.
“Because it tastes good,” one student said about why they do it.
One student said, ” It’s a good way to enjoy yourself as long as you know what you’re doing.”
From the information found from abovetheinfluence.com any substance classified as a street drug is addictive, contrary to popular belief. It is commonly thought that marijuana isn’t addictive, this has been proven to be completely false. Most teens who are in treatment for drug problems receive a primary diagnosis of marijuana dependency. This diagnosis is more common than the primary diagnosis of all other illicit drug dependencies combined.
Every student who admitted trying marijuana at least once also said they have gone beyond the use of just that drug. Some of the other drugs students admitted they have used included ecstasy, mushrooms, salvia, heroin, acid, methamphetamines, LSD, amphetamines, alcohol, various inhalants and prescription drugs.
The only drugs that came close to being as popular as marijuana were the numerous forms of prescription drugs that students can get their hands on.
There was an 80 percent increase for kids who do use prescription drugs over the last 10 years in the country.
Ecstasy Pills
“I like the feeling I get from trying different pills,” one student stated.
It’s been said that popping pills takes pain away and according to one student interviewed “makes you forget.”
According to the U.S. Department of Health and family services, doctors will recommend that you only use prescription pills as directed.
These drugs can be seriously harmful physically and mentally and they can be as addictive as street drugs such as cocaine and heroin.
Some students are more than willing to risk the dangers of using drugs and becoming addicted and even the pain of trying to quit in the future.
Officer Jason Hottenstein said, “They’re not making the right life decisions, it’s all peer pressure.”
Many of the students started using because their friends or family members such as siblings and cousins got them into using. Three of the 25 students interviewed said they have parents who use drugs openly.
“I tried to quit once. But my mom didn’t understand, and kept me using,” one student recalled.
A small portion of those interviewed said they use to “have fun” and “have a good time”.
Most students will say there is a deeper reason as to why they use drugs and alcohol, not to just fit in or have a good time, but get away from pain in their lives.
“A quick fix for the pain is all that matters,” as one student had said.
Drug addiction often becomes overwhelming. Students who have drug problems can seek help through the school’s SAP program which is both voluntary and confidential.
The SAP team is a great tool for bettering one’s life. Donmoyer says what he wants to do for Penn Manor students is to assist in “setting them up for success.”
