MANCHESTER - The 2012 portion of the L-L League sports year is in the books.
The last event on the docket was contested on Monday afternoon, when Columbia ventured across the river to take on Northeastern York in a non-league girls’ basketball game.
The Bobcats coasted past the Crimson Tide by a 62-42 count.
A 23-5 second-quarter burst helped Northeastern grab a commanding 39-16 lead at the break.
The Bobcats, who improved to 3-5 overall, used a mesmerizing full-court trap in the first half, forcing the Tide to turn the ball over 19 times - 11 times alone in the second quarter, when Northeastern seized control for good after building a 16-11 lead after the first quarter.
Columbia, now 3-6 overall, outscored the Bobcats 26-23 in the second half, but it was too little and too late for the Tide, which jumps back into L-L League Section 4 play on Wednesday night with a 1-3 record in a home date with Lancaster Mennonite.
Megan Seibert dropped in three 3-pointers and scored a game-high 15 points and Jenna Plastino chipped in with 14 points for Columbia.
Shea Mathison came off the bench and scored a team-high 13 points and Jordyn Kluster had 10 points and seven rebounds for Northeastern, which forced 27 turnovers and out-rebounded Columbia 39-28.
Freshman starter Lucy Schulz plucked a game-high 10 rebounds for the Tide, which dropped its fifth game in a row after a 3-1 start.
First-year coach Maureen Schulz has been coping with a short bench; Columbia has just 12 players on its roster and does not have a JV team.
Monday, just eight kids dressed and only six played; two kids on Schulz’s bench never played basketball before coming out for the team this season. Two freshmen - Schulz, the coach's daughter, and sub Tanaya Sanford - are key contributors.
“You live in constant fear of injuries and foul trouble - especially injuries - and we even have to worry about having enough kids at practice,” said Schulz, who said team managers and trainers - and even herself - all chip in during practice sessions.
“We’re getting there,“ she said. “We have like six eighth graders coming. We take it one game at a time, and we try and get better one game at a time and learn from it. This is what it is. So I tell our kids all the time to go hard and play the game.”
NOTABLE: In my Sunday girls’ basketball notebook I reporter that no L-L League girls’ players were closing in on 1,000 career points. Wrong. After scoring 14 points Monday vs. Northeastern, Columbia senior F Jenna Plastino, a four-year starter, is up to 856 career points - leaving her a very reachable 144 points from hitting that milestone. Plastino, who is averaging 18.4 points this season, is poised to become the 10th player in program history to score 1,000 points - and she’d be the first one to do it since Erin Keiper back in 2001. Columbia’s all-time leading scorer is Marjie Rhoads; her 2,573 points are most in L-L League history. ... Northeastern topped L-L League Section 2 tri-leader Elizabethtown 59-54 last Friday in the first round of the Bobcats' holiday tournament.
JEFF REINHART: jreinhart@pennlive.com
ON TWITTER: @JeffReinhartPN