Despite Tough Afternoon At Chambersburg, Season At Large, Hempfield Relishes ‘Opportunity’ As Black Knights Prepare To Embark On Critical Offseason Defined By ‘Trust’
Written by: Andy Herr on February 2, 2025
From a historical standpoint, there are few, if any much better. But if specific numbers are indeed more your forte, those regarding the Hempfield Black Knights’ boys’ basketball program over time can stand comfortably upon their own merit.
In terms of Lancaster-Lebanon League championships, only McCaskey and Lebanon have fared better than the sprawling suburban school from Landisville with the Hempfield accruing eight L-L League crowns over their history, the most recent coming from the 2022-23 campaign. Beyond that, the Black Knights can rightly boast four runner-up finishes in the conference finale, alongside 24 appearances overall in terms of the league tournament, a clip good enough for fourth all-time behind those two schools plus Lancaster Catholic. On a broader District 3 level, Hempfield hasn’t exactly been a slouch there either considering that the Black Knights have appeared in the big school final – whether it be considered AAAA or 6A – five times over. Lastly, Hempfield’s storied history also includes the labor compiled by way of head coaches, Warren Goodling, and current head man, Danny Walck, respectively, the second and fourth winningest head men that the half century year old L-L League has ever seen.
Suffice to say, seeing Hempfield at the top of the fray no matter what the circumstance has become nothing if not commonplace on a perennial basis. For that reason, that’s why this season has seemed like such an outlier for the Knights.
Heading into their Saturday afternoon affair inside of Franklin County, Hempfield oddly entered their final week of the season while carrying around a 3-16 overall record, 1-8 within Section One play, all while being just one spot above the current final spot in terms of the overall District 3-6A power rankings.
Granted, absent of diving even further into the numbers to describe how we got here, there’s another number that needs mentioning in terms of describing their story (and beyond) this season—100%. For that percentage would describe the total of both points scored and minutes played for names expected to be back on the Black Knights’ roster come next season following their game played on Saturday.
However, when you’re one of the largest school districts inside of all of District 3, there is no ducking, nor trying to avoid the competition. You essentially have no other choice but to play all of the big-name franchises and power players as result. And simply put, that’s exactly what Hempfield found waiting for them on Saturday afternoon at Chambersburg.
For any local basketball savant in the south-central Pennsylvania region, the Chambersburg Trojans have long-since established themselves to be a force in this little section of the universe. Like their Saturday afternoon counterparts, the Trojans have been a consistent pain in the sides of their Mid-Penn brethren on a constant basis, all while capturing the eventual District 3 title five times over within their history to boot. And it’s not like this 2024-25 edition of Chambersburg needs any further help either considering the Trojans entered the weekend with a 14-3 overall mark, good for the fifth-place spot in the current District 3-6A power rankings. But if they did, that proverbial help certainly came in the form of Chambersburg senior wing, JJ Kelly, the program’s all-time leading scorer bound for Ohio University next season, along with Shawn Shreffler, the school’s all-time winningest head coach, who recently eclipsed 400 wins during his time in charge.
So yes, while perhaps this edition of a Chambersburg and Hempfield matchup might’ve seemed like a stark contrast considering each sides’ numbers compiled thus far inside of this season, the one thing that Saturday did offer was a chance, an opportunity, for a young Hempfield squad to get a first-hand look at what an upper echelon team within their framework appears as in the form of Chambersburg, and what it may take eventually reach a similar level in due time.
Now, in terms of the initial few minutes played in this one once the ball it did eventually get tossed into the air, the script couldn’t have gone much better for Hempfield all things considered.
After playing a defensive style that sagged off and dared the Trojans to hoist from deep, Chambersburg instead opted to take a more methodical approach when it came to trying to decipher the Black Knights’ defensive style. Conversely, while then being extra diligent and careful when working down on the offensive end, Hempfield had essentially ground any possible momentum captured by their hosts down to a grinding halt, holding Chambersburg to all of four points throughout the opening portion of the game’s first period.
In fact, the Black Knights would climb to within one at 4-3 following a trifecta sprayed down by way of junior forward, Tate Guthrie, with just a hair over three minutes left outstanding in the opening stanza.
Yet for as well as they had played to start the game on Saturday, things were about to a dramatic about-face in the Trojans’ direction.
All told, in the aftermath of the Guthrie 3-ball, Chambersburg would proceed to author a timely 9-0 close over the final few minutes and change, a spurt undoubtedly highlighted by the aforementioned JJ Kelly, the eventual game-high scorer with a 20-point day at the office, as a high-flying dunk finished off by the 6’6 Ohio Bobcat helped to close the book on what suddenly became a very emphatic 13-3 advantage possessed by Chambersburg come the end of the first quarter.
But from there, Kelly continued to be the antidote for any sort of Hempfield footing.
Case in point, following a pair of pullup jumpers by way of Kelly which helped raise the curtain on the second quarter scoring, the Trojans’ cushion had suddenly ballooned out to a 17-3 margin with Hempfield calling a timeout with all of 1:35 having evaporated off the quarter clock.
Finally, and certainly not a moment too soon from their side of things, a Spencer Troyer bucket inside the paint would close the book on the Black Knights’ nearly quarter-long scoring drought as the Hempfield junior forward made it a 20-5 contest with 4:45 left in the opening half by that juncture.
However, with Chambersburg having since been able to get into a groove and settle down despite those first few minutes in which Hempfield tried their hardest to try and suffocate things in their favor, the Black Knights would later head into the locker room having tallied just all of three field goals throughout the opening 16 minutes as the Trojans found themselves in firm control at the intermission given their 27-8 lead heading into the break.
And in the third quarter, Chambersburg simply kept the hammer down.
For that, a JJ Kelly three-point play would later trigger the running clock rule into effect with the score standing at a 38-8 difference with 3:04 left in the third, with Kelly having done the yeoman’s work for his fellow troops by scoring six of the Trojans’ 11 third quarter points at the time.
That said, there would be no shutout pitched defensively by Chambersburg inside the third quarter. Certainly not if Lucas Mussmon had anything to say about it of course.
Granted, while the Hempfield junior’s points all came within the final minute of play in the third frame to avoid any such possibility of an 0-fer in regards to Hempfield’s quarter scoring, a gutsy and timely four-point showing from Mussmon in the closing stages helped to send the Knights into the final frame with a little burst in their step, albeit while still trailing by a 38-12 count with just eight minutes left to go.
On the day, while Kelly was obviously the star and the focal point that shined brightest not just considering his 20-point showing that came part in parcel with no one else from either side reaching double figures scoring, the other underlying fact of the matter was that Chambersburg was getting efforts from all Trojans littered across the board all the same against Hempfield on this day.
In fact, once the horn finally sounded, the Trojans saw eight of their players hit the scoring column on the day, not the least of which included 5’11 freshman guard, Ayden Sylvestre, as his layup at the cup pushed the Chambersburg lead out to a 40-12 difference with time already running slim. From there, Tyrell Hawkins drew arguably the loudest ovation of the afternoon once the 6’0 senior big man finished off a nice post move inside much to the delight of the home patrons, making it a 42-19 Chambersburg lead before 5’10 junior guard, Aedan Walker, proceeding to bury an NBA-range triple which helped to put the proverbial cherry on top of this afternoon that was so clearly Chambersburg’s day to shine and handle business with little to any drama whatsoever having to take place considering what would amount to a decisive 45-24 final verdict over their guests from Lancaster County.
Afterwards, while having to board a bus in the morning hours before then traveling an hour-and-a-half (in one direction) only to come up short the way in which they did on Saturday could understandably only add onto and compound what has obviously been a tough year overall for the Black Knights, for a head coach with the acumen like that of Danny Walck, his years of experience and success allow him the grace and ability to see things on a much deeper level than simply final scores alone.
“That’s part of growth and that’s part of consistency. You have to maintain that for 32 minutes,” Walck said when asked about what may have changed following the first couple of minutes in which his team went toe-to-toe with one of the area’s best squads before subsequently falling victim to a 34-9 Chambersburg salvo in the latter stages of the first quarter prior to the start of the final period. “There towards the second quarter, later part of the first, that sort of died off a little bit. Doubt set in. I thought we came out in the second half though and we had three possessions there where we executed, but we just didn’t finish. Again, growth. You have to finish those on the road against a quality team like this,” Walck remarked. “But I thought we did some other things in the second half that showed we are growing in the direction. There was no quit.”
“Shawn (Shreffler) does an excellent job. That’s a really good basketball team,” Walck added while lauding the victorious Trojans. “They got a lot of pieces, man. But what a great experience for us. Great opportunity. That’s why we came in here today. This was a great opportunity. You see that you gotta have that determination for 32 minutes to compete against (Chambersburg). We’re getting close. We didn’t for 32 minutes. 20-some? But 20-some doesn’t get it done.”
And for a coach like Walck, a winner 400 times over in his own career while in charge of Lancaster Catholic, Reading High, Warwick, and Hempfield, this too is not a season he is used to. Yet oddity or not, his fire still burns just as bright for this particular group of guys too.
“It’s been a challenge,” Walck admitted of this year. “But when I go to the computer tomorrow and I look at games and I’m not excited, then it’s time for me to do something else. That’s still there. That’s still there.”
“I think I have some things I can offer to these young guys going forward to help get us back on track,” he continued. “But it’s a journey. It’s a journey. Everybody in this day and age wants that instant gratification. It doesn’t work that way.”
“When we do a scout all the time, the last thing we ask based off the scouting report is, ‘How do we win?’. Kids will always put down, ‘We have to want to win.’ That team over there? They want to win,” Walck remarked of Chambersburg. “Drive down south, Greencastle, they want to win. We’re going to drive by Shippensburg and Carlisle. They want to win. Big Spring’s in there too,” he said in filling out the local geography of schools on the western edge of District 3. “Here’s the key. You have to have the will to be prepared to win. Clean that up, and we’ll get back a lot faster to where we want to be. That’s my job.”
“Commitment is going to be the key,” the Black Knights’ coach then stated of what future success largely hinges on. “We’re playing teams that are committed to that. The teams that are in those playoffs right now, they’re committed to that. In our history, we’ve been committed to that,” he pointed to regarding Hempfield’s historical excellence. “It’s rebuilding it brick by brick with that philosophy. Laser-focused, fundamentally sound skill development. Not Youtube skill development,” Walck added with dry humor.
“In that process, there’s this word called trust. You gotta trust that the people around you are going to be real with you because they care the most about you. It’s not always what you want to hear. But we care, so we want you to be successful. Every person on this team, on this roster, has team-value,” he was quick to mention. “Don’t base your worth to the team on whether its minutes-played or whatever else it may be. You’re of value to this team, or else you wouldn’t have the uniform on. That’s the thing you’re fighting in this day and age because there’s so much noise and so much outside influence. When you get that buy-in, two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, five years ago, going on three consecutive trips to the (L-L) finals, state runs back in the day with (Ryan) Moffatt and the gang, they bought in. They bought in.”
Lastly, as mentioned off top, nearly the entirety of this Black Knights’ crew is due back come the start of the 2025-26 campaign. And with that, there’s a unique perspective that Walck and his fellow coaches can use, an actualized and visible means, to illustrate just how far they’ve come thus far, and hope to go beyond that into the future.
“I think one of the biggest teaching points and tools we have to use is video,” said the now 15th-year head man at Hempfield. “I need to keep it at the forefront for them. What I mean by that is, teach them, and give them the resources to go and prove they can compete at this level consistently for a full year,” he said in assisting his players to try and reach that higher level.
“After Thursday (against Governor Mifflin), this season is more or less in the books. So, the question becomes, ‘Did we get better? Did you get better?’ And kids have to face the hard facts of, ‘What are my weaknesses?’ Identify them. Then, what are you going to go do about them? If you show up in November 2025 even though you have (this season) under your belt, but you don’t do anything from there in between, it ain’t going to change. You gotta get bigger, stronger, faster.”
“We can’t do a lot about height,” he quipped before adding in closing, “But we can do a lot with strength, motor, grit, and guarding in a stance collectively for 15 seconds. You get that, you’re going to have music. You don’t do that, it’ll be a broken record.”
This season, maybe they’re a bit off-key as opposed to what we’re accustomed to. But as history will tell you, when the harmony and synchronization are working in tandem, there aren’t many ensembles hitting notes better than that of the Hempfield Black Knights. Until then, we’ll just have to wait and see what they sound like before they hit the stage and grab the mic come next season.
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