Hershey Opens Up Defense Of District 3-5A Title By Riding Second Half Surge, Sweeney’s 29 Points, Past Manheim Central In Opening Round Tilt

Written by: Andy Herr on February 17, 2026

3 miles. That’s the distance between Hershey High School and the nearby Giant Center. A trip so short that they’ve probably made it a million times. Perhaps, but not while riding on a bus while en route to a basketball game that is.

Last season, even for those that wouldn’t normally consider themselves to be Trojan-backers, it was next to impossible to not get caught up in the story that became the Hershey Trojans’ boys’ basketball team of 2024-25.

To say they were good last season would be one of the biggest undersells of all-time. How about historic? In fact, remember that short little jaunt from their campus over the house that all mid-state high school hoopers dream of one day playing on? Well, Hershey enjoyed their first momentous excursion over there so much last season– what became a 20-point drubbing of Exeter in the District 3-5A title tilt for the program’s first district crown since 1974 – the Trojans decided to run it back just a few weeks later and return for the 5A state title game, a place where they would ultimately fall to Neumann-Goretti, but not while playing in front of an understandably massive orange and blue-colored contingent of quite literal neighborhood fans that saw the Hershey fans outnumber the N-G supporters somewhere to the tune of a 96% to 4% comparison. And maybe that’s even being too conservative of the Hershey folks.

But that was it, right? A cool little story to be tucked away and revisited down Memory Lane somewhere down the line, yes? Maybe, but if anyone expected Hershey to simple fall back in line and not be an overwhelming threat to make noise in both the District 3 and PIAA fields yet again this season, that message has obviously fallen on deaf ears inside the Trojans’ camp.

Granted, when you return the literal runner-up in terms of the Pennsylvania State Player of the Year in class 5A vote recipients, you certainly are positioned quite nicely while getting in the starting blocks at least. For Hershey, that’s precisely the benefit that the Trojans had at their disposal coming into this year while gladly reupping on the services of now-senior point guard, Cam Sweeney, who has since become the program’s all-time leading scorer over the course of his much-decorated scholastic career. And while it was also true to mention that Hershey would return their two of their top three scorers off last year’s club in describing Sweeney and Drew Grana respectively, it was equally fair to point out that five out of the top eight Trojans from last year’s squad are now alums of the school after having graduated this past spring.

Yet somehow, Hershey is actually better off this season compared to this exact time a year ago when considering their 20-2 overall record they brought with them into districts this season as opposed to their 19-3 mark from last winter.

Speaking of the postseason, that’s exactly what Monday night brought with it in the form of the first night of District 3 tourney play as the Trojans were set to embark on what they hope is another long and successful jaunt in the postseason — maybe with another short trip to Giant Center next month if they have their druthers — by welcoming in a Manheim Central squad to their home floor to kick things off on President’s Day evening against a Barons’ squad that while coming in at sub .500 at 10-12 overall, had masterfully negotiated and scheduled their way out of a tight jam – like, being as far down as jostling between the #17 & #18 spot in the district rankings just last week type of gridlock– by steadily climbing up the ladder before locking up the #15 slot which in turn sent them to the home of the state silver medalists from a year ago.

And by the end of this night at least, it was mission accomplished for the school looking to make sure that last year’s District 3 trophy doesn’t feel lonely inside the case.

Early on though, if Manheim Central was intimidated by the surroundings and the circumstance placed in front of them, they certainly had a funny way of showing it.

Granted, while the Barons were besieged by an onslaught of first quarter turnovers, the visitors nonetheless were able to hold their own by and large, something best evidenced by a pair of Chase Book and Jayvior Morales takes to the cup respectively, buckets which knotted the affair up at 4-4 and then 6-6 counts, with now half of the opening frame already having been extinguished.

Yet while the aforementioned Cam Sweeney would retaliate in offering a pair of buckets not long afterwards that then pushed the Trojans’ lead up to a 12-8 difference, a timely Maddix Witman trifecta for Central later sliced the difference back down to three, 14-11, which is precisely where the margin remained upon entering the second stanza.

In the second quarter, just when it may have appeared as if Hershey was finally on their way towards pushing Manheim Central away and into the distance at long last, the Barons once again refused to play nice in fulfilling that role.

Case in point, a pair of triples sunk by way of Colin Connelly and Chase Book respectively, trifectas poured in the pair of Barons’ seniors which then clipped the margin back down to all of three points, 22-19, with 2:17 left to play in the opening half.

However, come the latter stages of the second quarter, that’s when the hosts finally began to hit their gait.

For that, a large portion of the portion of the credit needs to be doled out to Grant Later as the Trojans’ senior guard finished off an old-fashioned three-point play with 90 seconds left before the break which gave Hershey their largest lead of the contest at that point, 27-19, which is exactly where things would remain once both teams reentered the playing surface for the third quarter of play following the halftime break.

Sure enough, the second half would largely be considered nothing more than a forthcoming Trojans’ onslaught.

In fact, the dominos would begin to fall on Hershey’s initial offensive possession out of the recess as Cam Sweeney, held down to all of eight points throughout the first 16 minutes, began the third quarter with a bang by pouring in a triple despite getting fouled in the act, an omen of things yet to come for both he and Hershey crew at large.

Later, in the truest illustration of “workmanlike” that came via an offensive rebound(s) and stick-back through the trees by way of Hershey’s Jack Zakovitch, a 16-point scorer on this night against the Barons, pushed the Trojans’ lead out to a comfortable 36-22 difference with 5:24 left to play in the third.

But that’s when Sweeney decided to take over.

How does a timely 10-0 personal spurt sound? For Sweeney, that must’ve been quite an attractive proposition considering how the All-State guard would then offer that up in kind with the third quarter continuing to roll along as a pair of Sweeney buckets in transition – the last of which came in the form of a one-handed dunk – preceded a pair of lethal triples from beyond the arc which had largely put the eventual outcome of this contest on ice the rest of the way home.

Fittingly though, considering how they had largely dominated this period that came following the intermission, a jumper knocked down mere seconds before the quarter horn blared, this one coming courtesy of Ryan Burnett, not only allowed the Trojans to put the exclamation mark on what became a 27-12 stanza that went in their favor, but it more importantly allowed the hosts to open the final eight minutes with possession of a 20+-point lead powering their sails as Hershey carried the 54-31 gap with them into the fourth and final act.

In the fourth, while Manheim Central would try their best to at least offer up one last solid rebuttal to try and reel Hershey back to within shouting distance, Hershey didn’t seem interested in taking those calls either.

Sure, while a 3-ball sunk by Manheim Central senior Zach Hunt would offer the Barons a bit of momentum swinging back in their favor, a Sweeney take to the cup, two more en route to what became his game-high 29-point night at office, continued to allow the Trojans to breeze home through the final portion.

And while Manheim Central junior guard, Elijah Henely, would offer up his own solid spurt that came in the form of a 5-0 run by first bombing in a triple before a tough and determined take to the tin on the ensuing offensive possession, the die had been cast on how this game would be decided.

For once it was, as the score might’ve allowed some to surmise, this was just another night of business being handled by this group of Hershey Trojans who only seem fluent in the language of winning, a feat best evidenced by their 64-44 triumph over Manheim Central to help raise the curtain on what they hope will once again be a long and fruitful postseason journey.

Turns out, while the team’s head coach, Paul Blackburn, once the head man in charge of the L-L’s Lebanon Cedars not all that long ago, may be the main captain of the ship, it is the players themselves who decide where exactly this boat travels out on the open water.

“I don’t set the goals,” Blackburn said following his squad’s opening round district win on Monday night. “Of course I’d want to win a state championship every year if it was up to me as a head coach. I’d say, ‘Let’s win a state championship. Everybody follow me.’ But I’ve learned through time that it doesn’t matter what I want. It matters what the kids want,” said Blackburn.

“I listen to the kids. I listen to my captains and my senior leaders to find out, ‘Are we in shape? Do we need to come in on Saturday or do we need the rest? Do we need to come in on Sunday night to get some shots up? What exactly do we need?’ I trust them and they trust me,” the Trojans’ coach continued of the mutual understanding on having this team be player-led. “I think we’ve had success as a program because I listen to the kids and they know it. They know I want the same things that they want. If they say they want to win a district championship, I’ll say, ‘I’m all in. I’ll do whatever I can to help you get there. If we lose, I’m going to cry with you. It hurts me because I’ve taken on your goal.’”

But as mentioned off top, the topic of losing isn’t exactly a topic that has been broached in Trojans’ camp these last couple of years. A combined 46-6 mark these last two seasons following this defeat of the Barons on Monday night should lend credence to that. Not too shabby either when you consider that Hershey is no longer a brand found sneaking up on anyone anymore. Instead, these Trojans routinely get slung everyone’s best arrows.

“I’ll be honest, after the year we had last year, I think there’s a little bit of Hershey fatigue,” said Blackburn of seeing his team routinely walk into gyms while getting every team’s best shot in hopes of the opposition being able to slay one of the mid-state’s best teams. “That’s fine with us. I respect that. I’m the same way. I’ve seen teams from afar and even I’m like, ‘Dang. They’re good again?’ But people are human,” Blackburn said with a smile. “We go on the road, lost a road game, and there’s a celebration, a court storm. We see it. We respect it. But we’ve earned that. We should cherish that. And we do…I’m okay with a target,” Blackburn added. “The kids embrace that and they embrace the moment. They want their friends to come out and watch them play. They want the community to talk about what they’re doing. They love all that stuff that comes with it.”

And aside from the team itself, there is one name that is talked about not just exclusively inside the Hershey town limits, not just the mid-state, but arguably the entire state. And maybe, as far out as the eastern seaboard.

“He’s the Pennlive Player of the Year from a year ago. He’s First Team All-State. If we win the state championship last year, I think he wins Player of the Year,” Blackburn said while listing off Cam Sweeney’s litany of personal accolades already garnered for a career not yet completed. “Everywhere he goes into a gym, even for AAU, people are talking and pointing, ‘There’s Cam Sweeney.’ He’s been that “it” guy ever since he was a little kid and he’s had eyes on him ever since,” Blackburn detailed of his senior table-setter. “But he’s a great teammate. He’ll gladly give the ball up to a teammate. If he sees somebody struggling, he’ll offer quiet words of encouragement and steadiness…He becomes the best defender in the gym when he has to, he rebounds the ball when he has to… He leads us in every statistical category,” Blackburn continued.

“Sometimes, people look and say, ‘Well, if we could just stop (Sweeney), we’d be in great shape.’ Okay, but how are you going to stop the best passer, the best rebounder? Like, he just wins,” Blackburn then said bluntly. “He’s the winningest player in our program’s history by far. He came in this year with 69 victories which tied him with his brother Marcus Sweeney and Matt Banas who both played for me. Those two had the most wins. I did the whole deep dive on Hershey basketball,” Blackburn joked of his personal research project. “But he had the most wins coming into a senior season,” he added of Sweeney.

“He’s all our school’s all-time leading scorer. He comes into a gym and gets heckled by everybody. He’s a difficult whistle too because he’s so physical. Games are sometimes called a different way and he’s adjusted to it. He’s figuring out, ‘What am I allowed to do? What am I not allowed to do?’ Even when he might pick up his second or third foul and the place erupts (in hopes of Sweeney either being benched or fouling out), I can still play him because he’s so smart…He’s just a special, special player that you just don’t see all that often.”

For Blackburn and Hershey, they hope that the final game for Sweeney and this entire senior class doesn’t come anytime soon. For them, they hope there’s one final roundtrip waiting around the corner in March. Like, literally right around the corner – to a place that’s only three miles away.

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