Dallastown Continues Winning Ways As Wildcats Shoot Past South Western, Remain Surrounded By A Bevy Of L-L 6A Squads In District Playoff Chase As Potential ‘Playoff Prep’ Game Against Penn Manor Looms On Saturday
Written by: Andy Herr on January 25, 2024
Admittedly, while this site will almost always be reserved for chronicling the overarching landscape of high school basketball teams found from around the Lancaster-Lebanon League most specifically, it’s not as if we are totally incapable of being able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Or, more succinctly put, not being totally naïve to understand that a much larger world of hoops exists outside the Lancaster and Lebanon County borders. In fact, part of the reason that makes this hustle so unique and fun (speaking for myself here) is the ability to see other names and faces –and most specifically the teams themselves — that you may not otherwise interact with all that much. From there, you may be so fortunate to have some of those acquaintance-based interactions hopefully someday blossom into friendships through a shared comradery of the sport itself.
So, why do we say all that as a prelude here? Well, perhaps because it may seem rather odd on the surface to have LLHoops.com, a site almost exclusively dedicated to the Lancaster-Lebanon League, show itself inside York County for a mid-week game where, get this, no L-L teams were found competing on the same night.
Understandably, while a South Western and Dallastown York-Adams mid-week tussle may not exactly move the needle all that much on the eastern side of the Susquehanna in particular, it probably should quite frankly. You see, entering Wednesday night, Dallastown, the hosts of this affair, found themselves squarely on the cut line of the District 3-6A playoff bubble with just a couple of weeks remaining in regular season play.
And why is that important you ask? Just read the room (or standings), jack.
In District 3’s version of the 6A world, just a dozen teams get tickets to dance in the latter part of February once the tournament gets underway officially. Suffice to say, with the Dallastown Wildcats sandwiched directly in between two L-L squads found in Hempfield and Penn Manor respectively, the rest of the regular season slate for teams in and around the bubble takes on the upmost importance. Oh yeah, beyond the “immediate” bubble discussion, there sat the Ephrata Mounts as well –firmly wedged in the middle of a battle royale for L-L Section Two’s two playoff bids for the league tourney as well—in the 14th spot with the York High Bearcats looking over their shoulder at them most certainly.
Of course, when you can have two of those teams directly around the cutline square off with another, that is nothing if not appetizing. Fortunately, or unfortunately if you’re a coach perhaps, that’s precisely what will occur this Saturday once Dallastown rolls into Penn Manor for the rare second game of a season series against a nonleague opponent as the Comets largely rolled behind a 29-point Ethan Benne performance in his first game coming back from a finger injury in the opening game of Warwick’s holiday tourney when these two first met. But as mentioned, that Saturday afternoon matinee in Millersville would understandably lose a bit of its luster going in should either Penn Manor and/or D-town stumble their way into the weekend. In Penn Manor’s case, it looks like a case of anything but thus far as the Comets reversed course on a 44-point drubbing at the hands of Cedar Crest back in December as Penn Manor scored one of their largest wins in recent memory on Tuesday night in a game where the aforementioned Benne became just the sixth player in school history to eclipse 1,000 career points. In Dallastown’s case, they too began an ultra-important week for themselves in good form by topping York Tech, 70-48, back on Monday evening.
On second thought, yeah, maybe it is actually much harder than expected to leave the underlying L-L-based storylines aside even when none of them are actually playing. Anyhow, no matter what league or conference it is, finishing strong is always the name of the game. In Dallastown’s case, that exactly what they wanted to do once their welcomed the Mustangs by way of South Western into their house for a game in which the Wildcats could ill-afford to slip. Fortunately, as far as the blue and white fans would consider, it would prove to be a game held on Wednesday in which the Wildcats would largely not break a metaphorical sweat at any point from initial tip to final gun.
In fact, the hosts were able to build their lead up to a somewhat sizable 8-2 cushion in the early going against South Western behind the aide of two Jalen Cook takes to the cup, coupled with the visiting Mustangs missing more than their fair share of bunnies inside as well, before a breakaway layup finished off by Kobe McNealy had the count reach that aforementioned margin as both Cook and McNealy had been able to tally all of D-town’s points with 4-apeice.
From there, South Western finally made a bit of a push back amid the ongoing Dallastown flurry.
For that, the Mustangs leaned on the efforts of their bouncy forward, Garland Amaker, scoring a bucket inside before a floater knocked down on the very next trip courtesy of Dominic Gilberto would then cut the gap down to just two, 10-8, with things starting to somewhat teeter in the direction of the guests from Hanover.
Yet from that moment on however, Dallastown wouldn’t allow South Western in much closer than arm’s length.
Specifically speaking, the Wildcats would proceed to rip off a timely 5-0 spurt to close the initial stanza as Dallastown carried a 15-8 lead with them into the second period. Then, right from the outset of the brand-new quarter which began in earnest, a brand-new Dallastown squad quickly came into view.
There, behind the catalyst known as point guard Brytaen Wiedman and his pair of 3-balls splashed down throughout the first two minutes and change, Dallastown found themselves up by double figures, 20-9, before a 3-ball on the ensuing South Western trip by way of Gilberto helped to push the Mustangs back inside of 10 with the second quarter starting to march towards its halfway point.
However, once Wiedman would knock down his third triple of the period while en route to what would be a 16-point effort come the end of the night, the Wildcats were later able to double up their opposition at a 24-12 count before a late bucket inside tallied by Aidyn Garner within the final minute eventually propelled Dallastown into the halftime break with their largest of the evening at the time by virtue of the 30-16 score emblazoned up on the scoreboard following the opening 16 minutes of play.
To their credit though, South Western appeared to come out of the halftime recess a bit more invigorated and eager to start clawing back into the fight and out of the hole that Dallastown had largely thrown them in up until that point.
In that respect, yet another long-ball buried by Dominic Gilberto –the Mustangs’ leading scorer on the evening seen chipping in a dozen to pace the South Western effort — on the opening possession of the third quarter allowed the black-clad guests to gain a step of momentum before a sweet up-and-under move contributed by another impressive member of South Western’s tall and rangy frontline, Elijah Holly, got the margin back down to a dozen at 32-20 with 6:15 left in the third by that juncture.
By as far as Kobe McNealy saw fit, the Mustangs would be sent back out to pasture the rest of the way home.
Truthfully, while it may have started off rather mundane by comparison’s sake considering it took place by way of a traditional three-point play from the Wildcats’ shooting guard which would up the Dallastown lead out to 17, 37-20, a much more modern and flashier version of adding three more points to the existing count found in raining a triple from beyond the arc would follow suit not long afterwards as McNealy largely helped get Dallastown off and running all by his lonesome.
The only problem for South Western was, he wasn’t exactly finished right there either.
In fact, McNealy would proceed to rifle in two more treys inside of the third stanza in successive fashion to later up the difference to 46-22 as he was already well en route to what would be a very loud 26-point night at the office once the dust had finally settled.
And with the Dallastown snowball already rolling downhill with a full head of steam thanks in large part to McNealy’s recent exploits, a magnificent contortion in midair within the lane by way of Chase Meyer put the Wildcats on the 50-point threshold before the hosts would go on to finish the third frame with the commanding 52-35 cushion before heading into the final eight minutes.
There, inside the final stanza, while South Western would try their best to try and slice into their existing deficit, it largely continued to essentially serve as a Wildcats’ coronation on “Teacher Appreciation Night.”
Specifically, while the Mustangs would conjure up their second dunk of the evening with this one being thrown down by Garland Amaker, a wide-open backdoor cut along the baseline by McNealy on Dallastown’s ensuing offensive trip was a prompt retort before yet another trifecta, this one by the previous man of the hour before Kobe McNealy happened to get involved, Brytaen Wiedman, allowed the Wildcats to flirt with the 20-point margin, 60-41, with just inside of four minutes remaining.
Finally, as far as the concluding score was most concerned, seeing Dallastown eventually prevail by what would crystalize into a commanding 72-44 count felt apropos given the way in which the Wildcats performed rather proficiently on offense on this night, not the least of which included shooting the absolute leather off the basketball altogether on Wednesday.
“We’re shooting the ball well,” current Dallastown head coach and former Elizabethtown Bear during his high school playing days, Mike Grassel, admitted postmortem following his squad’s offensive onslaught in the win over South Western. “We just have some confidence right now,” he continued. “Since Central York pasted us, we had a big win against Red Lion and beat York Tech. Even before Central pasted us, we had a big win against York Suburban, so our guys are just believing right now. Defensively, shoot, I’ll take 44 (South Western points) every night. I don’t care who it’s against. If we hold someone in the 40’s, we should win.”
But of course, this evening pushed aside for just a moment, it’s hard to ignore the elephant in the room right now. That of course being that Dallastown, amid a cast of L-L 6A squads in particular, is essentially currently playing playoff basketball right now as we speak.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking,” Grassel said when asked about how much he likely hits the refresh button on the District 3 power rankings webpage these days. “Dude, I’m a math guy so I look at those numbers all the time. Yeah, we’re looking at who’s around us and who they (have to play), who’s winning, who’s losing. As more games happen, there’s less and less movement…We just keep telling (his players), ‘We as a team want to take this one game at time,’ but I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t look and try to project. I mean, we had 13 wins last year and I think we were the #11 seed. I think 13 (wins) this year should put us about the same.”
“As coaches, we have to look ahead,” he went on to add. “It’s a four-game week, but it helps that we already played everyone so far except York Tech, so we already have a scouting report on every single team. We just have to update it. We’re also showing some different things that we didn’t show the first time through that teams are going to have to adjust to…. What’s nice for us is that teams can’t just key in on shooters,” said Grassel of his team’s metamorphosis in general. “Like #11 (Jalen Cook), he’s a freak. When he can finish around the rim like that, now you can’t just key in our shooters. We’re getting to the rim more. Don’t get me wrong, we still shoot our fair share of 3’s, but they are good looks. They’re off drives and kicks. The one nice thing about this team that they believe in good offense, and they run good offense. There might have been one or two takes tonight that I would’ve called questionable. Aside from that, they were all good looks and we’ll certainly live with that.”
Granted, while both Dallastown and Penn Manor have equally critical games to first take care of Friday night when they match up with Spring Grove and Hempfield respectively, the idea of both of these razor-edge teams careening head-first into one another on Saturday afternoon is hard to ignore. Rest assured, the Dallastown head coach is well cognizant of that himself.
“Ethan Benne,” Grassel said before the actual question could be asked in full. “Ethan Benne is a total stud. Selfishly, I wish (Dhamir Wesley’s) Villanova trip was this Saturday and not last Saturday,” he said with a laugh considering how the Comets were without the future Wildcat football player’s services last weekend in a loss given said trip to his future college home. “I mean, they’re just a really good team. Larry (Bellew) is a heckuva coach. If nothing else, if we can get through Friday, Saturday is a playoff prep. If we win on Friday, whether we then win or lose on Saturday, that’s going to prep us,” Grassel stated. “Again, we already beat two playoff teams in the last week. If we shoot like we did tonight, we have a shot. And honestly, we have to shoot it. We have to shoot it because we aren’t the biggest team in the world. We have some tricks in our bag, but no, Penn Manor is great. That win against Cedar Crest was huge.”
Huge in more ways than one perhaps. Just as Dallastown and Penn Manor’s meeting on Saturday figures to be as well.
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