It was an ordinary day. Reading the story about the Campagna twins that was recently published in my local LNP newspaper. The Campagna family lived across the street from my wife and myself when we lived in Manheim Township. I had both Scott and Shannon, the mother and father Campagna's, as students in my class when I taught at Manheim Township High School in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Scott and my son Derek played baseball together at Manheim Township. Scott and Shannon married a few years after they had graduated and raised their family across the street from Carol and myself. The entire family was extremely athletic, but their twins Brenna and Calli were involved in just about any female sport that Manheim Township High School sponsored. One of their biggest sports was field hockey. Brenna recently had a 1/4 page photo of herself published in the LNP morning newspaper. The caption under the photo read: Manheim Township's Brenna Campagna is one of LNP/LancasterOnline's Athlete of the Year finalists for the 2023-24 school year. The MT field hockey coach, Jess Shellenberger, wrote..."This year she was the one. If you were scouting Manheim Township, you had to respect Brenna Campagna. There's no question what a force she was in the middle of the field." The article in the morning newspaper began with a story from early in the season with.... Brenna Campagna's frustration kept growing as her team fell behind. Manheim Township was a rising field hockey power. On this day, the Blue Streaks weren't playing like one. "Can I say something?" Campagna asked coach Jess Shellenberger during a team huddle. The answer was "yes". Of course she could. The senior was a two-time captain. Someone who competed so hard and invested so much...her teammates had no choice but to listen. The moment remains striking nine months later. Campagna usually led by example. The time she led with her voice. She let everyone know this effort wasn't good enough. "That was the first big team we played that season," Campagna said. "I was like, 'Go out and try as hard as you can.' If you fail, that's much better than running away from the ball and being scared." At the time, Township was trailing Palmarya 2-0 when Campagna gave her speech on September 21. The game ended in a 2-2 tie. Campagna pulled the Blue Steaks even with a penalty stroke with 40 seconds left. That was the catalyst for a season of firsts. First Lancaster-Lebanon League championship, First District Three Class 3A championship, and first trip to the PIAA finals. Those inspiring words spoken during the Palmarya game must have done the trick. "That moment was huge for us," Shellenberger said. She used her influence over that group, put the team on her back and said, "Let's freaking do this." That's the player that she was from that point forward. Breanna, one of LNP/LancatereOnline's three finalists for Female Athlete of the Year, became an All-American in the center midfield. Township only lost twice last season, including a heartbreaker against Emmaus for the state gold medal. After the long bus ride home from Cumberland Valley that day, with the runner-up trophy riding shotgun, Shellenberger asked the 10 seniors to stay behind when the rest of the team was dismissed. The veteran coach thanked them with tears in her eyes. "Look what you did," coach said. "You put this program on the map." Campagna was vital to that emergence. Brenna's twin sister and her were born 45 minutes apart. Calli arrived first. Brenna took her time before finally joining her sister in the world. Mom said that was a sign of things to come. Even though they weren't identical, they've always had a shared identity. If I happened to be out on my riding mower, mowing my lawn, when the twins left their house across the street from me, I could never tell one from the other. They would both always wave to me as I was riding my mower. It was said that even their mannerisms made it difficult to tell them apart. Brenna wore No. 2 and put her hair into a bun while Calli wore No. 3 and put her hair in a ponytail with a braid. They were best friends from the moment their sports journey began. Actually from the day they were born. Not many times that I didn't see the two of them leave their house together. "It's been so much fun to experience this with someone right by your side the whole time," Calli said. "To a lot of people, we're just twins. It's cool to be identified with her and all of her successes." They eventually had to choose their sport of the future with Calli heading to the University of Cincinnati to play lacrosse while Brenna will play field hockey for Wake Forest. The only bad thing about this is they have never been separated for more than four days in their life. Gonna be a hard time for their first week or so apart. "It's one of those late-night thoughts that you have," Brenna said, "I'm not going to see her for months at a time. I think its's time we became our own individual selves." They'll text constantly and try to FaceTime every day. They'll watch each other on a livestream and remain connected in every way they can. I suspect it will take at least a year apart before they realize how much they mean to each other! The girls are the youngest of the five children of Scott and Shannon. They've been handed the same wonderful gift: a chance to be excel in their own sport. And...I'm sure they will make the best of that chance. Think Mom and Dad will miss them when they go off to school? A least they still will have the large plastic grocery bag filled with gold medals from all those championships to look at every day. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
PS - I wrote this story a few days ago, but didn't post it until today. In this morning's (Sunday, July 7, 2024) Lancaster Sunday Newspaper, it was announced that Manheim Township's Breanna Campagna won top female honors for the 2023-24 school year and whose talents proved exceptional! Congratulations and "Best of Luck" to Breanna and Calli! from the Woods' Family.
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| Breanna taking a shot on goal - LNP Photo |
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