1974 Lancaster Catholic girls basketball players reflect on championship run [video]

As with all championship ensembles, the connection of the 1973-74 Lancaster Catholic girls basketball team was very significant and real.

Rooted in middle school, fostered by a forward-thinking coach and solidified over time, those players became as entwined as the laces on the Chuck Taylors they wore on 3-mile preseason runs through Grandview Heights. It left them joined like the pages of the scrapbooks they leaf through, 50 years later.

They functioned like five fingers on a hand, as team member Kathy Butz put it. Five fingers on a hand, working together. Five fingers, shoving aside everything in their path. Five fingers, grabbing the ultimate prize.

Those Crusaders — or Crusaderettes, as they were identified at the time — swept all 27 games they played that winter to secure, on March 23, 1974, the first state team championship in Lancaster County history in any sport. They became the first of five state championship teams in program history, the most recent added Thursday night.

They stuck together, even as they lost a key starter to injury that January. Even as others got nicked up along the way. Even as they found themselves facing a significant deficit in the District Three championship game, their greatest moment of truth that postseason.

“Everybody was in it, 110%,” said Leslie Diehl Ziemer, the point guard on that club. “It was everybody. You have the starters, but it does take the whole team. You could have the five best athletes ever and have a horrible season. The whole chemistry has to be there. It’s just a testament to everybody who was there.”

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Mimi Senkowski Griffin, Ziemer’s backcourt partner and the acknowledged star of the team, isn’t sure any of them would have been the first choice in a pickup game.

“But collectively,” she said, “we were unreal.”

As Helen Balasavage Long put it: “We all understood our roles on the team. We all got it. … We all felt part of it.”

Ziemer added: “It’s a 24/7 thing. The key is, we all had something.”

That was clear from a young age. Griffin, Ziemer, Long and a fourth starter, Paula Kambic Kemp, had first collaborated on the court as middle schoolers at Sacred Heart School, and they stuck it out for the long haul.

All of them had been starters on the 1972-73 team. That squad went 21-1, winning a district title but falling to Allentown Central Catholic in a first-round state playoff game that left coach Pat Wallace fuming about the officiating and vowing — “like Joe Namath,” Griffin said — that her club would be back to finish the job.

While Ziemer doesn’t recall the Allentown Central Catholic game being a springboard, Griffin and Long see it differently. Long said it “added fuel to the fire,” and Griffin agreed.

“I don’t know if we would have been as good the next year if we hadn’t lost that game,” she said.

‘She taught us how to think basketball’

Wallace was the team’s driving force. Her players viewed her as demanding and not one to suffer fools. But she was also an innovator. She immersed herself fully in the job, as she did all her pursuits.

A March 1974 Intelligencer Journal story noted that she and three friends built a log cabin in the Maine woods the previous summer, but she had begun building something far sturdier when she took the reins at Lancaster Catholic in 1959.

The Crusaders’ feeder system featured coaches who had once played for her, ensuring that those climbing the ladder would have the same precepts drummed into their heads, year after year.

If there was consistency, there was also an emphasis on adaptability, especially on the defensive end, where Wallace employed various presses and traps.

“She didn’t teach us how to play basketball; she taught us how to think basketball,” said Griffin, who would also play for Wallace at Pitt after a year at Delaware.

Wallace, who died in December 2023 at 86, was also a master motivator.

“She didn’t treat us as girls basketball players; we were basketball players,” Griffin said. “She was tough, but she wasn’t harsh. She was like my mother: You toed the line because of the guilt you’d have if you crossed the line.”

Long recalled Wallace more as “a taskmaster” who once held the team after practice to run extra sprints, even though the Crusaders had spanked their previous opponent by 20-some points.

“She didn’t hesitate to call you out,” Long said. “If you weren’t doing something, she would get right in your face.”

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Desire to win

Heading into the 1973-74 season, Wallace knew she had a stacked deck topped by Griffin, who had been on varsity since her freshman year.

The product of a large, athletic family, she was following in the footsteps of her grandmother and mother, both of whom had played hoops in their younger years, and her older sister, Barb, who had preceded her at Lancaster Catholic.

Mimi — given name, Marianne — called Barb her “idol,” and indeed her older sister had established the school’s career scoring record before heading off to Bucknell.

Mimi went on to break that record, scoring 1,168 points. While others at the school have since surpassed that total, she was the first to exceed 1,000.

“I think the sport meant everything to her,” Kemp said, “and it showed on the court.”

The others — the other fingers on the hand, as it were — were no less capable. Ziemer was the primary ball-handler. Kemp, a center/forward who Long described as “one of the most beautiful players to watch,” was the other big scorer; in fact, she became the second Crusader to surpass 1,000 career points.

Long, who also rotated at the post spots, was a rebounder and defender, and Butz was “the Caitlin Clark of passing,” Long said, invoking the name of the current University of Iowa superstar. Lynne Parks Strum and Monica Curtin Aguirre saw their roles expand as the season wore on.

They were a seasoned bunch, as their rotation included three seniors (Griffin, Long, Butz) and four juniors (Ziemer, Kemp, Strum, Aguirre). Everybody seemed to know what was at stake.

At some point early on, Long said, they all fashioned patches out of construction paper with the letters “IBD” written on them — for “Intense Burning Desire” — which they then pinned to the blue blazers they wore in school.

“When I say ‘IBD,’ I mean it,” Long said. “We were out to prove a point. We wanted to win so badly.”

Nor were they about to leave anything to chance.

All season they lugged around a stuffed tiger that had been deemed a good-luck charm by previous teams. The thing even had its own uniform.

“That was bequeathed to us,” Ziemer said. “I have no idea how the tiger came to be. I remember seeing pictures of it with teams prior to us. Tradition, I guess.”

All about defense

An early season victory over Garden Spot, the same team the Crusaders had beaten for the district title the year before, got them off and running.

As would be the template for future Lancaster Catholic teams — and remains the case to this day — Lancaster Catholic routinely squeezed opponents with a dizzying array of traps and presses.

“Teams didn’t know how to deal with us,” Ziemer said, “because we were showing them things they never encountered.”

Defense would inevitably spawn offense, and before long, the avalanche was in motion. The team’s average margin of victory was 34 points.

“It was fun playing the press,” Long said. “It wasn’t fun for the other team.”

They were breezing along when Butz injured her right knee in a January game and was lost for the season. She remembers the injury as a torn medial collateral ligament. She also remembers the psychological pain.

“It was extremely hard, and only because (basketball) was my identity,” she said. “I had a passion for it. It’s what kept me kind of going.”

She showed up for every game and practice the rest of the season but admittedly felt a little lost.

“It took me a while to get over being angry,” she said. “I didn’t know where I fit in after I got hurt.”

Long said she thought Butz’s injury was “devastating” to the team. At the same time, she said, “We resolved ourselves that we can’t let this stop us.”

Strum and Aguirre began alternating as the fifth starter, and the others closed rank, while making sure Butz felt included.

“How do you get somebody over that,” Ziemer said, “other than (to say), ‘We’ll win this for you.’ ”

Postseason push

The team finished the regular season 19-0 but would negotiate other physical issues as the postseason grind unfolded.

Long missed a game with an eye injury, and Griffin found herself on crutches at one point with an infected knee, an issue that, according to the March 7, 1974, edition of the Intelligencer Journal, required a shot of penicillin.

Strum played on despite a nagging knee problem, and Kemp was beset by the flu.

Still the team rolled along, dispatching Schuylkill Valley, Warwick, Cedar Crest and Lebanon — all by 13 points or more — to land in the District Three championship game opposite Susquehanna Township.

It was in that game, played in Hersheypark Arena, that the Crusaders’ offense abandoned them. According to the March 9 edition of the New Era, they shot a ghastly 12-for-79 from the floor — 15.2%.

Reminded of that recently, Kemp expressed shock via email, “Oh my gosh …12 for 79?” she wrote. “I bet Coach had us doing extra laps for that! LOL.”

As always, the Crusaders’ defense kept them in it. They forced 32 or 33 turnovers, depending upon which news account you believe. After falling behind 28-20 early in the fourth quarter, they held the Indians scoreless the rest of the way.

In the meantime, they rattled off the night’s last 10 points, including Griffin’s go-ahead steal and score with 2:58 to play. She added a free throw 54 seconds later to make it 30-28, and that’s how it ended.

“I remember thinking, ‘Thank God we got out of that one,’ ” Long said. “We couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

Hey, IBD, right?

“You just dig deep,” Ziemer said. “We were never in that situation. To put it together in time says something.”

Griffin remembers that, as the comeback unfolded, she found herself in the middle of a zone press — either a 3-2 or a 1-2-2 — with Kemp on one side and Ziemer on the other.

“C’mon,” Griffin screamed. “We’re not losing!”

“I think I was possessed, to be honest with you,” she recalled with a laugh. “It was one of those defining moments: ‘We will not lose.’ That was kind of the mentality that team had, and it came directly from Pat.”

Neither Ziemer nor Kemp remember that specific moment, but Ziemer said she is not the least bit surprised that Griffin reacted the way she did.

“That was her,” Ziemer said. “She was the cheerleader: ‘C’mon, snap in, do it.’ ”

Long concurred, saying that Griffin often served as the good cop to Wallace’s bad cop.

“If coach yelled at you for doing something stupid,” Long said, “(Griffin) would come over and say, ‘You’ve got this.’ She would keep our heads up.”

The team rallied again in a PIAA first-round game against Plymouth-Whitemarsh, though not nearly as dramatically.

Down 26-25 late in the second quarter — and again shooting horribly (26%) — the Crusaders limited their opponent to 14 points and won 46-40 behind Kemp’s 19 points. It was one of four times she led Lancaster Catholic in scoring in eight postseason games that year.

Next up was the Eastern final against Central Columbia in the Pennsylvania Farm Show Arena. There, the Lancaster Catholic defense was at its disruptive best, forcing either 47 turnovers (according to the New Era) or 49 (according to the Intelligencer Journal), totals that almost defy belief. Kemp again led the way, with 18 points; Griffin had 14.

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Realizing the magnitude

There was one game to go now, back in the Farm Show Arena: Baldwin, in the state final.

While another game was unfolding within that dingy old barn, Griffin said she can remember going to a spot high in the stands, behind one of the baskets, just to settle her thoughts.

“It was almost a surreal moment,” she said. “It was hard to comprehend where we were. The magnitude caught up to me in the moments before we went on the floor to warm up.”

Then the ball went up, and she had what she described as “an out-of-body experience.”

“I was almost an observer and not a participant,” she said. “I guess it was the proverbial zone athletes go into. The whole team had an out-of-body experience that game.”

She scored 28 in a 75-32 rout, but as always, everybody played their part. Ziemer notched 15, while holding Denise DelGreco, one of Baldwin’s big guns, to two. Long was matched against 6-foot-2 center Patti Bucklew — “It felt like she was 6-8 to me,” Long said — and held her to six points. And Lancaster Catholic forced 32 turnovers in all.

The domination was total, the mission complete.

There was a police escort back to town, and hundreds of fans awaiting them in the parking lot at school.

In the days that followed, there were luncheons and dinners and proclamations and presentations. Then-Mayor Richard Scott presented each player with an engraved Hamilton watch.

“Talk about cool,” Griffin said. “That was cool.”

Also fitting, since theirs was a timeless achievement.

“We didn’t realize at the time what it meant to the city of Lancaster,” Ziemer said. “Now I realize more of what it meant to the community.”

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Where are they now?

The players are all in their late 60s and reconnect on occasion, notably in 2019, when the team was inducted into the Lancaster Catholic High School Hall of Honor.

At such gatherings, Ziemer said, one memory begets another, and another, and another.

“We still have that bond, that link, that tie,” she said. “Nobody can take that away from us.”

As Griffin put it: “There were lots of things we all encountered and had to overcome. You don’t even remember that stuff. It’s like childbirth: You just remember the good things.”

Butz, Long, Ziemer and Kemp still live in the county.

Griffin settled in the Lehigh Valley years ago. In addition to working for several years as a college basketball broadcaster for ESPN and CBS, she formed an event management and sports promotion firm, which works in conjunction with several big golf tournaments, including the U.S. Open.

She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.

Long is a retired high school teacher and guidance counselor at Conestoga Valley and Hempfield. She also did some coaching and officiating.

Kemp is likewise retired, having worked most recently at QVC.

Butz is a partner in Butz Sign Co., the family business since 1948.

Ziemer, a hygienist since 1977, is nearing retirement.

Sadly, the team’s ranks have thinned.

Sue Kirchner Baumler, a sophomore on that club, died in 2022, and classmate Ellen Senkowski Gray, Mimi’s younger sister, died recently, on March 12.

Wallace was living in Fort Myers, Florida, at the time of her death. Her obituary in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette included this passage: “Pat was an unrelenting advocate for being who you are and doing what you want. In the end what she did was make the world a brighter place.”

She also molded a team that played as one — that, again, played like five fingers. Five fingers, reaching for something special. Five fingers, reaching back and grabbing indelible memories.

Always that. Always and forever.