Benne, Penn Manor Look The Part As Comets Continue Impressive Start In Commanding 22-Point Win Over Twin Valley
Written by: Andy Herr on December 8, 2023
(Ethan Benne POG Against Twin Valley)
Whether you consider it either fair or foul, it’s not totally incorrect to suggest that some years just naturally appear to be more important than others on the surface. A sort of “make or break” campaign if you will. That said, perhaps the notion would be labeled “foul” due to the fact that we are referring to high school sports, a segment of athletic competition that –at least for now —still contains a bit of innocence and purity to it when directly comparing it against its older siblings of major college and professional sports of course. On the other hand, perhaps “fair” because of high school sports’ inherit cyclical nature where certain groups of athletes rising within a program’s pipeline can either lead to a period of thick or thin times depending on the skill level and pure numbers of bodies. In terms of Penn Manor boys’ basketball most specifically, they are currently banking on the latter.
For years, the Comets have been seen trying to scratch and claw their way into the upper/middle class of Lancaster-Lebanon League Section One standings. And while they have proven to be more than a headache for their foes within the division to try and contend with at times, Penn Manor has unfortunately largely stood by and watched as their divisional brethren have taken their respective turns at competing for that oft-sought section title with them on the sidelines. This year however, expectations have rightly been raised in Millersville for their high school hoops team.
Try this on for size. How many years has it been since Section One has seen a frontline that contains a pair of college-bound athletes? Not only that, but multi-faceted enough that they are receiving a high-level, post-secondary education via athletics in two different sports. Do we have to go back to the heyday of McCaskey to find such an occurrence? Regardless as to when exactly, the Comets are able to hang their hat this year on their pair of starting big men found in Dhamir Wesley and Ethan Benne respectively, as the former will head off to Villanova to play football in the fall while the latter will –in a very literal sense — walk right down the sidewalk to Pucillo Gymnasium where he will don the Millersville Marauder school colors in a basketball uniform at this time a year from now. Then, take that potent two-headed monster inside and pair that with a concoction of guards who have the ability to take their turn at filling it up in their own right on any given night, and it’s pretty easy to see why this may very well end up being a rather exciting winter season in this college town. And not for nothing, but if the Comets’ first three games of the season are to serve as any sort of precursor for what may be yet to come, games in which Penn Manor won by a ridiculous 33-point average, notice has been served through the first week that the Comets’ stock is rising. Fast.
Yet even despite such a torrid start, the absolute last thing Penn Manor could afford to due in their nonconference slate would be to slip up on the proverbial banana peel just when they had thought to have been operating on auto pilot. Quite frankly, they’d be right to be on alert when it came to Thursday night at the friendly confines when they welcomed Twin Valley into town, a Raiders’ team which had already knocked off an L-L opponent in Solanco just six days prior. Suffice to say though, short of spoiling the eventual story entirely, let’s just keep it simple and say that the Comets’ performance on this night in particular demonstrated as to why this early start is anything but a fluke.
Case in point, Penn Manor getting off to a blistering start against the opposition in this one. For that, credit would have to be handed out to the aforementioned Ethan Benne as the 6’6 senior Swiss army knife carved up Twin Valley for the first five points of the evening all by his lonesome. From there, one of the many guards in the Comets’ rotation stepped up and filled his role right on cue as Devin Figueroa promptly buried a trifecta in the immediate aftermath of Benne’s glitzy start with the senior guard forcing Twin Valley into calling timeout while staring up at an 8-0 deficit just 2:30 into the contest.
To their credit though, while it certainly appeared that Penn Manor had dictated nearly all the terms of engagement throughout the opening eight minutes, the visitors from Elverson were ripe for the fight regardless.
Sure enough, while the Penn Manor cushion would climb to as high as 11 before the Raiders would finally crack into the scoring column –an occurrence credited to junior sharpshooter Kooper Zdimal who fired in one of his trademark treys to make it an 11-3 ballgame – Twin Valley would go on to win the final stages of the opening frame albeit getting hit hard by the Comets’ early start, fighting the hosts to a 14-7 difference after one.
That second quarter though? That’s where Penn Manor stopped playing the role of hospitable host.
Ignited early by a 3-ball splashed in courtesy of 6’0 junior Michael Lower that got the second quarter party started, Lower would then proceed to take his act inside the arc with a floater in the lane that put Penn Manor up by two touchdowns, 21-7, with a hair over two minutes having been ticked off the clock.
In reality though, the hits just kept coming in Twin Valley’s direction right then and there.
In fact, it almost seemed as if Penn Manor had visions of flirting with invoking the mercy rule as the second quarter drug along. Easy to figure considering how Andrew Gallion, another of the Penn Manor key pieces, rose up and knocked down a triple of his own before Benne regained his scoring touch following two earlier foul calls whistled against him with a take to the cup which made it a 29-11 count with 1:59 left in the opening half.
But here again, even despite a quarter that so clearly felt as if Penn Manor was off and running never to look back, Twin Valley tried their darndest to keep it within shouting distance.
Ironically enough, just as he had done earlier in the first quarter, Kooper Zdimal proceeded to pepper in another of his long-range bombs –something he did in the final seconds against Solanco that sent that game into overtime a week ago with the Raiders going on to win – made it a somewhat modest 29-14 Comets’ lead at the break all things considered once the final 40 seconds of the second quarter bled off following Zdimal’s second and final trey of the evening.
Unfortunately for the guests, that would be just about the last of the good juju they would be able to capture for the remainder of the night.
As if they had drawn it up back in the locker room during the break before executing it to perfection, Penn Manor came out of the break with the perfect mix of offense/defense. For the defensive side of things, an Ethan Benne pin against the backboard in the form of a blocked shot would fuel the Comets’ out in transition offensively with things culminating in Dhamir Wesley showing off some of those prized tight end skills at 6’5 288lbs with a nice grab and lay in at the cup that clearly knocked Twin Valley back on their heels almost immediately. From there, it became the Ethan Benne portion of the program with Comets’ wing tallying the only dunk of the evening with a two-handed stuff to make it another football score, 35-14, with Twin Valley calling another timeout in the face of a Penn Manor blitz with 5:05 left in the third.
Even despite the stoppage to try and regroup from Twin Valley, Benne wasn’t so accommodating.
On the night, Benne would go on to finish the proceedings with a game-high 24-point outing with no one else who played on Thursday night being able to crack into double figures for either side scoring other than he. As far as the here and now however, Benne would go to finish the third quarter on a tear, highlighted by a devilishly sweet Euro-step at the tin that almost felt unfair to try and defend against given how smooth he was able to pull it off. And once the dust had finally settled in the immediate aftermath of the Comet senior’s latest antics, Penn Manor was able to look up at the 45-18 score after three and realize that they were well on their way to a 4-0 record in a matter of minutes.
Despite the eventual outcome seeming to be a formality, don’t bother telling that to the Twin Valley Raiders.
Sure, while you never have an appetite for moral victories or anything of the sort, you’d have to give kudos to how Twin Valley responded inside of the final frame despite looking over and seeing the Comets clear their bench minutes inside of the final few minutes. So much so in fact that a Raiders’ run that got underway via a 5-0 spurt courtesy of junior forward Riley Gray eventually forced Penn Manor to go right back to its current bench and reinsert their starting lineup as the Raiders had been able to successful chisel the gap back down to a level where you could almost start to wonder.
No need for pondering though once Benne and friends reappeared.
Once back on the floor with the game heading down the stretch, Ethan Benne may have authored one of his better plays of the entire night, a sweet dime underneath to Dhamir Wesley in true twin towers type form, upping the Comets’ lead to 20 at 51-31 with 2:45 left to play. Later, playing with same that same unbridled joy and emotion that comes with playing with the upmost amount of momentum at your disposal, a layup from Comets’ junior guard Julieen Severino in the waning moments seemed to be the fitting punctuation mark on this wire-to-wire Penn Manor win as the Comets successfully moved to 4-0 following their 57-35 defeat of Twin Valley.
Yes, a long way to go in the season, but you have to like the return on investment demonstrated thus far from the Comets in the early going. In fact, had they not been forced to close with key salvo late to stave off Palmyra in the championship game of the Donegal Tip-Off Tournament last Saturday night, Penn Manor hasn’t even let anyone come within shouting distance of them for the most part. Granted, take the schedule thus for what you will, but also don’t lose sight that in years’ previous these are games that the Comets seemed to fight tooth and nail to get into the left side of the win/loss column. These days, they seem to be playing the role of bouncer and not letting anyone even get in the door. Without question, that is a small yet nonetheless tangible step in the right direction. And who’s to say? Maybe those directions eventually even lead Penn Manor back into the postseason come the middle of February.
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