The following are excerpts from an online diary from the District Three basketball semifinal and final games at Hershey's Giant Center.
The entire diary can be viewed on the blog, Billy Paultz Revisited, at LancasterOnline.com.

Monday
Girls' Class AAAA semifinals (Central Dauphin-Reading); boys' AAA semis (Lancaster Catholic-Steel High, Eastern York-East Pennsboro).

The Catholic boys are considered an underdog against Steel High, which is coming on lately, supposedly because of the return of Jeff Davis, a freakishly athletic 6-8 kid who'd been suspended due to an, ahem, off-court incident.

The first half is an ugly slog after which the Rollers lead, 23-20.

But as Catholic coach Joe Klazas will say later, "In the first half we were playing to stay in it. In the second half we played to win it."

Now Davis (who is freakishly athletic, but far from a complete basketball player) is guarding junior swingman Paul Senkowski.

Except that Davis isn't interested in following Senkowski to the perimeter. So Senkowski nails a jumper. Then, a minute later, a 3-pointer. And another. And another.

The Crusaders are guarding like crazy, spreading Steel High out and making big shot after big shot.

The third quarter is 22-9, with Senkowski getting 14 of the 22, including four threes, on his way to a 19-point game. Catholic cruises, impressively, 62-44.

• Eastern York is undefeated, top-seeded and the clear AAA favorite. But the Golden Knights struggle mightily in the first half against the Panthers, who are fairly athletic, fearless and feisty.

After halftime, EY turns up the D a bit, gets to running and puts on a show. The third quarter is 31-11.

Andrew Nicholas, a 6-6 junior who's already committed to Rutgers, scores 28. He kept his team afloat in the first half. The terrific point guard, Austin Tillotson, also is a junior.

So can the Crusaders pull off a third straight upset (after beating Hershey and Steel High) in Thursday's final? It's gonna be tough.

Not sure they have a matchup for Nicholas, who could be the best player in this tournament, any class.

But Catholic is better than we thought, especially after it lost in the first round of the L-L playoffs, and more balanced than Eastern. It has a lot of guys who can score, which is very rare in the game right now.

All five starters average eight ppg or more. Senkowski, for example, averages 9.2, but had had games of 25, 24 and 19.

Also, they're tough kids who won't be put off by the stakes or the stage or the opponent.

Looking forward to it.

Tuesday
Boys' AAAA semifinals (Wilson-Reading, Hempfield-York).

Game one is like Penn Manor-Hempfield in the quarterfinals, two league rivals that play two to three times every year. They know each other too well, and kind of grind on each other for 36 minutes.

It's 14-8 at halftime. Wilson is very well-coached and plays terrific classic man-to-man. Reading is very athletic and plays like four defenses, all pretty well. But it runs no half-court offense at all.

The game is miserable to watch, but, I think, indicative of where high school basketball is right now: The defenses are so far ahead of the offenses that when two athletic teams face off, it's hard for anybody to look impressive.

As often happens, Wilson flurries late after doing nothing offensively all night. Trenity Burdine, Reading's 6-5, Siena-bound star, makes two plays that win it — both on defense, appropriately — a sprawling-on-the-floor steal and than a leaping one. 34-33.

• One question about unbeaten Hempfield is how it would respond to big-time quickness. York provides that, and Hempfield answers.

York's bigs aren't strong defensively, and the Black Knights get screen-and-roll-type stuff around the basket for 6-5 Taylor McDuffie and 6-6 Mike Uehlein.

But Christian Walck is the difference. The senior guard scores 21 with six assists and much of the ballhandling, playmaking and perimeter-defense work.

He's more athletic than you think; he had a two-hand dunk tonight, and not really on a clean breakaway where you can take your time, get your feet set, etc.

PSAC schools are recruiting Walck, but he said Saturday he's probably going the prep-school route, no doubt with an eye toward ending up at the D-1 level.

Don't bet against him.

Wednesday
Girls' AAA semifinals (Trinity-Palmyra, Oley Valley-West York), and Boys AA semis (Trinity-Hanover, Lancaster Mennonite-Delone).

This week has been curiously devoid of rowdy/goofy/amusing student-fan behavior that is traditionally part of the fun of this event. Now I have an idea why.

Palmyra had a student rooting section near press row that fully occupied a section of the seats.

They had the body paint working and were making some noise, but there was no snark, no belligerence. They were just supporting their team.

They wanted to stand. Not just when something exciting happened. They wanted to stand for the whole game. They were obstructing absolutely no one.

And the District committee directed arena security to prohibit them from doing so. And security didn't want to do that and was apparently unaware it was supposed to. So there was needless consternation about nothing.

Why? Except for the zeal with which certain school administrators suck the fun out of sports, I have no idea.

• Mennonite-Delone looks like an even, scrappy game much of the way. Eventually, the Blazers get easy offense inside from their half-court stuff and pull away.

The Blazers (19-6) are like Lancaster Catholic in terms of having balance and multiple guys who can score — Dean Royal (17 points), Jon Lapp (14) and Corey Leonard (13) lead it on this night.

Also like the Crusaders, they'll be underdogs in the final.

• It's official now, folks: L-L teams in boys' district finals in AA, AAA and AAAA. It should go without saying that that's never happened before. Pretty cool.

• And no, I did not stick around for Oley Valley-West York. Yes, I love me some hoops, but it's a long week, people.

Thursday
Class A girls' final (Steel-High-Greenwood); AA girls' final (Lancaster Mennonite-York Catholic); AAA boys' final (Lancaster Catholic-Eastern York).

Mennonite girls have a tall mountain in York Catholic, which has won five straight district titles and reached four straight state finals, winning in 2006, '07 and '08. The Irish are without their second-best player, sophomore forward Carly Marks, owing to a concussion.

Catholic's doing a nice job on LM big Erin LaVenice, who gets just two shots in the first half, making both. Incredibly, the Blazers get only 12 shots at the basket in the half, but trail just 19-15.

The Blazers, offensively challenged, somehow hang in to the end. They're down three with the ball with six minutes left when a technical is called on the LM bench, apparently on assistant coach Charlie Shireman.

"We felt like we were getting knocked around inside and not getting any calls," Gorman says later.

"We were talking [to the ref] and he said something like, 'I'll talk to you [meaning Gorman] but not your assistant.'

"Then my assistant said one more thing, which we didn't think was that big a deal, and [the technical was called]. It was a tough situation. We were right there..."

The technical takes Mennonite from down three with the ball to down seven. There's enough time left, but not enough firepower. York Catholic hangs on, 38-30.

LaVenice got just three shots at the basket and made them all, and did not get to the foul line.

Mennonite was the better team in this final last year, but collapsed late and lost in OT.

This year York Catholic was better and the Blazers never settled into anything offensively. Still, somehow, this was a winnable game.

• On one's 11th basketball game in four days, the eyes tend to get bleary, and the focus tends to wane. Then, once in a while, there's a game that reminds you why you're here.

Which brings us, appreciatively, to Lancaster Catholic and Eastern York.

EY starts with guns blazing. Ten minutes in, they've made over 70 percent of their shots, including seven 3-pointers, and lead 32-14.

It's spectacular stuff, and Catholic coach Joe Klazas burns two timeouts to stop bleeding and urge his club to mind its knitting.

"They can make some dynamic runs," Klazas said afterward. "I told the kids to just keep doing what you're doing, that eventually the shots will stop falling."

Somewhere in here Catholic's Tyler Purvis gets on a roll. He scores 12 in the second quarter, and even though EY doesn't back off much, the Crusaders get to the half down a reasonable 37-27.

The remarkable third quarter, Klazas says later, is "one of the best we've played this year."

The phrase "one of" makes that a giant understatement.

They score on nine straight possessions, 21 points in that stretch, (despite missing three free throws, one of them a one-and-one front end) and defend, and rebound and scream to a 48-45 lead.

As the fourth quarter wears on, both sides seem to tire and sense the urgency a bit too much.

The Crusaders manage just one point in the past 4:29, getting just one of a possible four points from (Achilles' heel alert) the foul line, where they've shot just 66 percent on the year. Eastern is also stalled offensively, except for a layup to tie it with three minutes left.

Klazas calls time with a minute left, Catholic inbounding on the baseline, and intends to hold for the last shot.

But the Crusaders can't get the ball inbounds in five seconds (although more than one observer thought the ref was a quick counter), allowing the Knights to hold it until Bollinger's game-winner.

Catholic defends Eastern's stars, Austin Tillotson and Andrew Nicholas, well on the last possession, but the Knights find senior guard Nate Bollinger, whose little jumper heels the rim, bounces up and falls in with 2.7 ticks left.

Catholic runs a nice play to get a reasonable shot by Will Schlosser, maybe a 40-footer, that doesn't miss by much. But it does miss. 55-53.

Purvis scores 25. Phil Wenger adds 11 and four assists, Wes Unseld-esque Ross Hall 10 and 14 rebounds.

An epic game. For Catholic, a heroic effort against a great team, but a brutal loss.

When Klazas emerges from the locker room, his tiny son is bouncing around the corridors. Klazas scoops him up and strolls away from the waiting media for a while, getting a lengthy hug and gathering himself.

"We're going to have to rebuild some spirits," he finally says.

"This was probably one of the best AAA fields in a long time. To get to this point, and play in this atmosphere... I'm very proud."

Boys Class A final (Reading Central Catholic-Greenwood); Boys' AA final (Lancaster Mennonite-Trinity); Girls' AAAA final (Central Dauphin-Harrisburg).

The ballyhooed Reading CC makes its debut on the big stage. The Cardinals have been beaten only once, by AAAA monster Reading in the Berks league semifinals, and led by 12 in that game.

RCC has a Reading High transfer, 6-3 guard Marcus Dawkins, who's considered a high D-1 prospect. It also has a nice point guard, Joe Rys, and Donyell Marshall's son Marquis, a 6-2 shooter. What's scary is all three are back next year. Marshall's a sophomore.

The Cards cruise, 51-32.

• Interestingly, Reading lost both Dawkins and, reportedly, a couple other kids that the coach showed the door before the season started, all varsity contributors last season.

Which means Reading can spot everybody half a starting lineup and still be the best team in the district.

Of course, Reading has 2,100 males in grades 9-11, almost 700 more than the next-biggest (McCaskey) and nearly five times as big as the smallest AAAA (Manheim Central).

Maybe spotting everybody a few players is only sporting.

• For most of the AA boys' final, Lancaster Mennonite hangs tough against Trinity.

The Blazers lead by five a minute-and-a-half into the third quarter, at which point Trinity coach Larry Kostelac calls time and informs his troops, to summarize, "This is it."

The Shamrocks get the message. A 20-5 run follows, and Trinity makes 21 of 22 free throws to seal its 750th (approximation) district title.

Mennonite is good enough athletically at this level. The Blazers get dribble-happy and frenzied at times, but when they run their stuff, they get shots (post man Phil Yoder scored 16, a number matched by wing Jon Lapp).

When this is presented to coach Geoff Groff, his reaction is sort of, "Yeah, tell me about it."

It's a nice team. And they compete. They could play some more.

Saturday
Girls' AAA final (West York-Trinity); Boys' AAAA final (Hempfield-Reading).

The heavyweight title match is, as expected, physical and intense and quick.

Whether it was too physical is a fair question.

Hempfield's Christian Walck was at the rim for a layup when Reading's Trenity Burdine raked down hard on Walck's arms.

Not dirty, but it was one of those literally intentional, "no-layups-today" kind of fouls.

No call. Walck went down very hard a couple times and said later that the padding players now typically wear under their uniforms got pulled out of place twice, meaning he hit the floor directly on a hip he injured last season.

"It took a toll on my body, eventually," he said.

For what it's worth, the game was tied, late in the third quarter, when the above play occurred.

Which is not to suggest Reading didn't earn this one.

As Hempfield coach Warren Goodling put it, "the game's a little faster-moving at this level."

There you have it. The game is actually too fast for most kids. The team that can make plays and be comfortable at that pace usually wins.

Reading was it.

So what else have we learned?

• For the second straight year, the endless battle of public vs. private schools ends in a 4-4 tie.

Publics win three of the four big-school titles, and privates go 3-1 among the small schools.

As always, draw your own conclusions.

• As WGAL's Pat Principe pointed out, in each of the four girls' tournaments, one player was utterly the difference: Steel High's Malia Tate-Defreitas in Class A, York Catholic's Kady Schrann in AA, Trinity's Laura Murray and Central Dauphin's Alyssa Thomas.

Murray and Thomas are off to D-1 colleges (Davidson and Maryland). Tate Defreitas and Schrann are back next year.

• Two years ago, at a Giant Center concessions stand: One sausage sandwich, one candy bar, one soda, $9.50.

Last year, $10. This year, $10.50.

Way to pitch in in tough economic times, Herco.