Following Senior-Led Team Meeting, Manheim Township Responds By Knocking Off McCaskey As Blue Streaks Inject Themselves Into Section One Leadership Discussion

Written by: Andy Herr on December 19, 2025

Come the middle of February, this is exactly the place where everyone aspires to be. It might not come with necessarily all the glitz and glamour of some spacious building that can host a variety of events like concerts and such, but to all the boys’ basketball teams that call the Lancaster-Lebanon League their home, Manheim Township on Valentine’s Day weekend is always the most sought-after destination when it comes to booking trips.

Since 2008, Township has graciously hosted the league title fight for both boys and girls. And it’s seen arguably some of the best of the entire bunch from either side as far as any historian of the league would likely tell you.

Inevitably though, while time waits for no man – especially in the realm of high school hoops most of all – the conversation then ultimately shifts to who exactly will make it to Township to compete for the league crown at the start of every new season. Granted, while we don’t have a ton of hard data to comb over when it comes to making a prognostication worthy of betting the mortgage on necessarily seeing as how we haven’t even yet reached Christmas, there are some names that are bubbling up to the surface of said discussion.

Chief among them, the team who just so happened to travel northward to Township on Thursday evening.

We get it. It’s been a minute since McCaskey has truly been relevant when it comes to talking about the league’s foremost power players. As crazy as that statement might be to type out and put into writing, the number itself is even more staggering when you considering that the Red Tornado, arguably the franchise most synonymous with carrying the banner for the entire L-L League all-time, has not made the postseason since 2020. We didn’t even know the true ramifications of this whole COVID thing that was making its way through the news at the time.

Now, after turning back to the glory years, the Tornado seemed to have been rejuvenated with the introduction of their newest head coach, Dustin Salisbery, a name that needs no further introduction when it comes to talking about McCaskey royalty when harkening back to his playing days.

And while it may have only been a half dozen games into christening this new era at Lancaster city’s school, the initial returns of investment have appeared quite good when assessing the Tornado’s 4-2 overall mark, highlighted by a clean sweep of the Lebanon County Section Foes, Lebanon and Cedar Crest, to get off to a quick 2-0 burst in terms of section play. Not only that, but it truly has felt like the good ole days on the court have arrived again as another Salisbery, Demere, Dustin’s son, has taken the league by storm in the early portion of this year as the sophomore transfer from Conestoga Valley came in league the L-L League in scoring — by a pretty healthy margin – at just a tick under 30 points-per-game on average.

But how about the team standing in their way on this night? You know, the ones who actually own the physical keys to this building and call it their home gym 365 days a year?

Quietly, perhaps due to all the other relative fanfare found occurring all around them, Manheim Township has slid under the radar somewhat if you look at the Streaks 3-2 record coming into Thursday. Yeah, there was the 3-0 start, games which ironically enough all came while out on the road, but an 0-2 stretch of late put a slight damper on that initial hot start, especially when one of setbacks came while not being able to score north of 25 points against York Suburban, while combined with a loss to their foremost rival, Hempfield, their last time out.

That said, the biggest win in that mix? Shoot, maybe the biggest win tagged by anyone in the league so far this season when you project out at long-term playoff scenarios and just how dominant Section One has routinely been historically come league tourney time? It just might be Township’s road win at Penn Manor last week, 57-52, a victory which could prove to be momentous down the line in a division where cannibalism might prove be the prevailing theme of the entire season.

But forget what’s out there on the horizon. How about the here and now?

For McCaskey, Thursday night not just the offered the Tornado their first section road test of the season, but perhaps a chance to measure the curtains if you will when it comes to potentially making a return excursion back here in two months for that league title affair. For Township meanwhile, a chance to prove that if anyone hopes to return to this same locale at a later date, it first meant getting through the hosts themselves.

And to put it mildly as the eventual verdict of this one started to come into view, Manheim Township might not be all that interested in relinquishing their home confines for the league championship game to an outside party. Not just to McCaskey, but anyone else for that matter.

First and foremost, let’s get one important element out of the way. In terms of the game itself, Manheim Township never trailed at any point on Thursday night. Granted, they were tied twice, 5-5, and 22-22, but the Streaks never once looked at the scoreboards hanging in either corner of the gym and saw themselves owning the smaller number.

With that in mind, how did we get there?

For starters, a Manoli Papadimitrou layup off the opening tip as the Streaks’ sophomore wing wasted all of a few seconds when it came to the hosts making a quick and immediate impact on the game’s proceedings.

Then, following another Papadimitrou bucket inside off a second-chance effort, good for two more to tack onto his eventual 14-point evening, the Township lead had suddenly swelled outward to a 15-9 difference in the aftermath of a pair of 3-balls sunk by Dayne Byler and Gabe Guarino respectively, with McCaskey clearly knocked back on their heels somewhat following this initial Township surge.

Later, Township, Guarino in particular, remained just as prolific from beyond the arc as the Streaks’ junior guard fired in his second triple in successive fashion, this one making it a sizable 18-9 Township lead, before a key baseline jumper knocked down by way of McCaskey’s high-upside sophomore big man, Amir Thompson-Hanson, helped to stop the Tornado bleeding somewhat with Township owning the 18-11 advantage after one.

Suffice to say, with McCaskey breaking the huddle coming out to start the second period while thrown in a touchdown-sized deficit, part of the reason as to why was the Township defensive gameplan had largely stymied some of the more prolific players inside the Tornado rotation. Well, that and foul trouble of course. With that in mind, someone needed to step and help fill the void before the Streaks could realize any desires of potentially running away and hiding for the remainder of the evening.

Enter Nazai Patterson to help calm those waters.

While it’s true that it takes a team effort, underselling Patterson’s minutes, especially in the second quarter, wouldn’t be fair to the McCaskey junior big. Aside from his rebounds snatched down in helping to erase a large discrepancy on the glass in Township built up during the first frame, Patterson’s buckets in the paint were equally as valuable in stemming the tide, just like his most recent of the bunch which trimmed the Township lead down to three, 18-15, with two minutes having gone by inside the new quarter.

However, when McCaskey would creep close, Township proceeded to turn them right back away from which they came.

Chief among the examples, a Papadimitrou bucket in transition thrown by senior guard, Jack Kenneff, as the two Blue Streaks who would share in team-high scoring honors between themselves with each netting a 14-point showing in the scorebook, helped to put Township up by a 22-17 count with 2:42 left to play, a gap which nearly held rock-solid throughout the final two minutes and change as Township raced into the locker room at the break with the 22-18 lead to their name.

As Township likely had anticipated, a swift McCaskey counterpunch coming out of the gate to begin the second half figured to be in short order there awaiting them. Again though, part in parcel with the energy inside the building that the Streaks’ fans and legions of Township Youth League players brought with them, that Tornado strike never quite landed.

That said, Jack Kenneff didn’t help any of that come to light as far as McCaskey’s desires as the Streaks do-it-all senior tallied two early third quarter buckets to help tear the roof off the building which preceded a Dayne Byler bucket in transition, hoops which made it a 28-22 Township cushion just three minutes into the third. Then, if he hadn’t already inflicted enough damage on the Tornado as it was, Kenneff would then bury a key corner triple to give Township their largest lead of the night at that juncture with the joint going bonkers – much like it would in a league title game.

Steadily though, even now swimming against the current as it was, McCaskey warmed to the fight.

Certainly helps when you have the talents of the aforementioned Demere Salisbery at your disposal that you can turn to in helping you get out of a tight squeeze, no doubt.

With that in mind, the McCaskey star guard certainly didn’t hurt his case for league’s most outstanding and/or valuable player consideration throughout the second half on Thursday night in particular as a Salisbery pullup jumper and theft and finish at the cup that came sandwiched around a Laron Gray trifecta helped McCaskey close the third frame on a lethal spurt before finding themselves trailing by just a pair, 35-33, prior to the start of the game’s final act.

Yet even here, all while putting the Township troops into a nervous and somewhat precarious position, the Streaks never once flinched.

Speaking of Kenneff, he continued with his old tricks as his take to the rack through the contact ballooned the Streaks’ cushion back out to a half dozen, 39-33, before his scoring running mate, Manoli Papadimitrou, tallied his own bucket at the cup to then make it a 41-33 ballgame not long afterwards with time now starting to run thin on a possible McCaskey comeback job.

And while he certainly did his part, including this most recent example which came via a hoop plus the harm what got the Tornado back within single figures at 47-39 with 90 seconds remaining, not even Salisbery’s game-high 20-point effort would be quite enough to power McCaskey over the finish line in this one as a late-game foul shooting courtesy of Papadimitrou, Gabe Guarino, and Kenneff respectively helped to seal this one up for good as Manheim Township was able to notch a key section triumph come the final buzzer by virtue of a 52-42 triumph over McCaskey, a game which they largely dictated the terms of engagement on from start to finish.

While it’s not necessarily a proven, scientific formula in which to rely truly on, the desires of the various classification levels typically go as follows: Freshmen want to play. Sophomores want to start. Juniors want to score. Seniors want to win. Ironically, for a Township team – much less program – that has an incredibly bright future ahead by all accounts for itself, those days aren’t here yet. Those who are though, like Jack Kenneff for example, are example 1A of that above logic regarding seniors.

“I think leadership is a big thing. Me and the other seniors, Ellis (Vorhis-Witmer), Joe (Algeo), and Ben (Faranda-Dietrich), we didn’t play too well the last two games,” Kenneff, a member of that four-headed senior class mentioned of the Streaks’ last two outings prior to Thursday’s get-right victory over the Tornado. “We had a team meeting yesterday, a nice hard practice. It was nice to have that all turn into wins like this tonight,” Kenneff continued. “It’s all the little stuff like that…I’m not too much of a vocal leader, but I think that putting my head down, setting the example, showing these young guys how it’s done, that’s kind of what I do best.”

Funny he should mention that. In the fall, Kenneff was the triggerman for a Manheim Township football team that made it all the way to the District 3-6A semifinal round before falling to Harrisburg. For a guy that threw for more than 2,100 yards while racking up 25 touchdowns over the last couple of months, you wouldn’t think that doing all that dirty work might be something all that palatable for a quarterback. But don’t bother telling that to Kenneff though.

“I think as quarterbacks, we kind of get that persona put on us that we’re all kind of pretty boys and don’t like mixing it up or whatever,” Kenneff joked about the misconception. “On the basketball floor, I’m glad that I’m able to show that intensity out there on the court where everyone is watching and you’re not hiding behind those big pads or a helmet. It’s really nice that I’m able to show that off.”

Appropriately, high-level, momentum-stealing plays like his that came all throughout this contest just so happened to work in perfect tandem with the overall juice that everyone wearing blue and white up in the stands brought them when it came to helping the Streaks summit the mountain.

“I said in warmups, ‘I haven’t seen this gym this packed in a while,’” Kenneff later remarked of the support he and his team received against McCaskey. “Even just coming out (for starting lineups) and having everyone cheering. I remember (McCaskey’s) first free throw, you got the little kids yelling, our student section yelling. It was like, ‘Wow. This is awesome. This is an awesome atmosphere.’”

Speaking of great atmospheres, maybe that’s part of the deal when it comes to wearing the Township jersey wherever you go.

“I thought we had a great environment on Tuesday night,” Streaks’ head coach, Matt Johns, then said harkening back to his team’s game at Hempfield that occurred earlier in the week. “I looked around (in the Hempfield game) and was like, ‘This is very old school. There’s people in gyms again. This is fun. Real people in gyms cheering for your team and against your team.’ We were down at half against Hempfield, not playing all that great, but I still thought we were in a good position. We just got frustrated,” Johns admitted of the eventual outcome. “Hempfield made plays and that frustrated us.”

“We had a really long talk. Actually, it wasn’t even that long right afterwards. I just said, ‘I can show you guys what is happening, but I can’t tell you on films why it’s happening. Only you guys can tell us the why. Only you can tell us why it looks like we’re disconnected now when we didn’t only a week and a half ago,’” Johns said of the message coming out of the Hempfield loss to his team.

“(His players) came in, the seniors had a team meeting, we gave them their space, allowed them to talk it out on the court, and they ended up taking ownership of things as a group,” said Johns of what took place internally following the loss to the Black Knights. “They committed to each other as a group and we had a great practice. We did not have a good practice for about two or three practices in a row before that….Over the years, I’ve grown to understand that real growth can’t come in fits and spurts. You just never want to go backwards,” he stated. “You aren’t going to stack a great day on top of a great day every day, but you can’t have two bad (days) in a row, or two sub-par ones. I felt like we finally came out and had the type of practice we had the last couple of weeks.”

Aside from practice, the Streaks’ actual gameplan employed against McCaskey wasn’t too shabby either.

“I think the most important thing we did was we had good possessions on offense that did not lead to transition points,” Johns elaborated. “We say a lot when it comes to McCaskey, ‘A good defense starts with good offense.’ Bad offense can lead to leak-outs and easy transition buckets. I thought our offensive possessions early were great. In the middle, when we got into foul trouble, we struggled a little bit. But, our guys kept playing. Against Hempfield, I feel there were stretches when our defense dipped because of our offense. Today, our defense was sustained the whole way through.”

And in a game like this where it takes positive production across the board from everyone, while there may be “stars” to be found quote unquote, even those fellas are quick to that point out and share the love.

“I think we just rallied as a team and we all hit big shots the whole way around,” Jack Kenneff mentioned in closing of his fellow teammates. “Guys like Gabe (Guarino) and Dayne (Byler) made big shots, taking tough buckets. I think we just came together as a team and played as one tonight. I think it showed.”

It did.

What also now shows is Manheim Township right there amongst the leaders of the Section One pecking order heading into the holiday break. Yes, while there is plenty more meat left on the bone, the Streaks, using Thursday night as an example, hardly seem to have their appetite fulfilled. Who knows? Maybe some home cooking will be in order.