Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 10/4/10
Two coaches that built boys’ lacrosse powerhouses in District 3 who saw their contracts end after the 2010 season have found positions as college assistants in Pennsylvania.
Doug Bailey, who coached 16 seasons at Hempfield, has joined the Elizabethtown College men’s lacrosse staff. Meanwhile, former Manheim Township coach Rich Lefever has been named an assistant at York College.
The hirings were first reported by Matt Blymier, the lacrosse beat writer from the Lancaster Intelligencer who runs a regular blog on District 3 news. Blymier also broke the news on both coaches not being retained by their respective high school teams in the summer.
Bailey won 260 games, 11 league titles and and eight District 3 championships at Hempfield. He was the Lancaster-Lebanon League Coach of the Year in 2003 and 2009, and was named District Coach of the Year in 2003. Last year his squad won the District 3 crown and lost to Seneca Valley in the first round of states.
Prior to assuming the coaching duties at Hempfield in the fall of 1993, Bailey was head coach at Kutztown University from 1988 to 1990 and was an assistant coach at Franklin & Marshall College for five years in the mid-1980’s. Bailey began his coaching career as an assistant coach and strength training coach at Penn State in 1982, after playing midfield for the Nittany Lions as an undergraduate.
Bailey has served as the regional lacrosse coordinator for the Blue Mountain team in the Keystone Games since 2001, and led the U19 Boys to the 2010 gold medal over Lehigh Valley.
Lefever started the Manheim Township program 11 years ago and led his Blue Streaks to 173 wins, four league titles, two state finals appearances and semifinal berths in the first two years of the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) championships.
In 2010 Lefever led Manheim Township to an 11-4 victory over Garnet Valley – the first time a team from outside of the Philadelphia area has ever beaten a Philly team in the state playoffs. Manheim Township fell to eventual state champion Conestoga in the semifinals, but not before giving the Pioneers a major scare in the first half.
The Streaks also reached the semis in 2009 under Lefever, bowing to eventual state champion La Salle by a respectable 10-3 score. In 2008, Manheim Township held its own in a 7-5 loss to La Salle in the final Keystone Cup title game.
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