The ELCO girls’ basketball team doesn’t have to qualify for the District Three playoffs for its season to be considered a success. Please don’t confuse cause with effect.
The Raiders don’t measure the level of their success by the amount of adversity they face. They calculate success by how they respond to it.
ELCO’s formula for success has very little to do with outside sources. The Raiders quantify success by what goes on inside the parameters of their team.
“No, we do not have to make it to districts to make the season a success,” said Karl Keath, who’s in his third season as ELCO’s head coach. “But we do have to finish strong, and if we don’t, it would be hard to say it’s a successful season. At the end of the day, we’re going to have a successful season because [of] how hard we work. We have had some hiccups. It’s not always rose pedals and smooth roads. What I appreciate is the girls kept coming back and playing hard.”
At this moment, the Raiders are inside the proverbial bubble to qualify for the District Three Class AAAAA playoffs. ELCO, which had gone 10-9 over its first 19 games this season, was perched 11th in an AAAAA classification, which takes 14 teams for its postseason tournament.
The Raiders close out their regular season schedule with three home games, against Garden Spot, Lancaster Catholic, and Lower Dauphin.
Over the two previous seasons, ELCO has found itself surrounded by similar end-of-the-regular-season circumstances, and each time the Raiders fell just short of qualifying for districts.
“At the beginning of every season, the players set four team goals by classes,” said Keath. “One of them was to get to districts. I don’t gauge my success on wins and losses as much as team chemistry. It’s (qualifying for districts) for the players.”
“We play hard,” Keath continued. “We normally practice very well. Now, it’s about putting it all together in these last couple of games on the court.”
ELCO opened its campaign with eight victories over its first 11 outings, and, with its 8-3 overall mark, seemed in pretty good shape around the first of the year. But during the following days of January, the Raiders dropped six of eight contests.
“Overall, we’ve played well in spurts,” said Keath. “When you look at our schedule, it’s a difficult one. There have only been two games when I was dissatisfied with the team. There was a time when we were not playing as well as we could have or should have. We had to go back and make some changes. I thought we became a little lackadaisical on defense. We weren’t playing the kind of defense needed to compete at this level.
“Personally, at the beginning of the season, I would’ve seen us as a possible district (playoff) team. I thought we’d have a possible chance to be one of the top two teams in our section. We didn’t quite achieve that. We may have gotten away from our values as a team. But we’re starting to bring that back again.”
The Raiders have gone 2-7 in Section Three of the Lancaster-Lebanon League, a circuit that features the likes of Northern Lebanon, Lampeter-Strasburg, Manheim Central, and Lancaster Catholic.
“Right now, Section Three could be the best section in the league,” said Keath. “On any given night, anyone can beat anyone.”
ELCO’s scoring this year has been paced by juniors Kenzie Eckhart and Maddie Stout. The Raiders have also received key contributions from sophomore Ava Seifert, sophomore Ava Beck, freshman Addison Mays, and junior Abigail Ruth.
But with ELCO, everything flows from its senior leadership.
“The leadership of our two senior captains, Gabby Smith and Reece Woelfling, has been a strength,” said Keath. “They’re multi-sport athletes, and the other girls look up to them. They’re great role models.
“I’m a firm believer in playing good team defense and team offense. The more people involved with production and getting on the court, the better. When we’re distributing the ball, we can be very dangerous. At the beginning of the season, we were shooting the ball as well as anyone, but we sort of fell off.”
In one way or another over the next month, the Raiders’ 2024-25 season will reach a conclusion. For the most part – for everyone – it’s been a memorable learning experience.
“The one thing I like to stress is that everything becomes a microscope,” said Keath. “I don’t want to overanalyze, because things are never as bad as they seem. Losing and bad times are parts of life. The sun is going to come up after a loss. I think we’re better off having fun and laughing. We try to be light-hearted. We all want to win, but at the end of the day, what we learn from a loss will probably pay more dividends.”
Because success is all about attitude and perspective.
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