
In Season Bursting With Promise, Ephrata Takes Successful Early Steps As Mounts Start 2-0 In Defending Homecourt Against Fleetwood Friday Night
Written by: Andy Herr on December 7, 2024
There are reasons for optimism around these parts this winter. And for good reason too.
This season, it’d be more than fair to say that for the first time in a few handful of years, there are expectations being asked and laid at the feet of the Ephrata Mounts boys’ basketball team heading into the campaign. Truthfully, why wouldn’t there be?
Granted, a bit of pause might come in that the Mounts are ushering in a brand-new era in the annals of the program, the Matt Herbener era in assuming head coaching duties, but it’s not as if the young coach –affectionally dubbed “Herbie” by those that know him best– is a fish out of water here by any stretch. In fact, he himself donned the purple and yellow during his playing days at Ephrata under the tutelage of Jason Colletti, the man now in charge of the Annville-Cleona program these days. And for those who maybe weren’t aware as to why Herbener perhaps got the gig here at his alma mater aside from being one of their own, just check the resume.
Prior to taking over at Ephrata, after working under Lancaster County mainstay, Charlie Fisher, Herbener helped to steady the ship of the Twin Valley Raiders program during his time prior to this latest move, effectively setting the Twin Valley program up for success long-term considering the stage he himself had helped bring to bear down in Elverson.
But coaching aside, those Jimmy’s and Joe’s are no small part either.
For the Mounts, while their assorted stats coming into the season may not have exactly blown the public away, it’s next to impossible to also overlook the strides that former head coach, Scott Gaffey, now leading the Littlestown Thunderbolts, made in helping the Mounts get on far more solid footing foundationally than they had enjoyed in recent memory. As a result, bringing back the likes of one of the more integral parts of any L-L team’s front court, Brayden Brown, sniper for hire Cooper Truskey scoring the nets on the perimeter, do-everything Cayden Landis mixing things up and bringing value anywhere, and not to mention a diamond in the rough find in one Marqus Hardin to name just a select few, there’s more than ample reason as to why the Mounts figure to make opposing head coaches’ lives just a little more uncomfortable this season given so many key roles returning intact without having to suffer through any humongous attrition due to graduation.
All that said, while the season would only bear one piece of fruit prior to the start of this weekend, it would be something delicious nonetheless considering how Ephrata would post a resounding 71-point performance that came part in parcel with a home victory over Daniel Boone earlier in the week. From there, this weekend saw another challenge asked of the Ephrata Mounts—Defending their home floor while hosting the Ephrata Tip-off Tournament in their friendly confines spread in action across the Friday and Saturday.
And while it may not have been perhaps as nearly as attractive offensively by comparison to the way in which the Mounts lit up the Blazers offensively to raise the curtain on the start of the season a few nights ago, leading wire-to-wire, such as the Mounts were able to do against another Berks County outfit on Friday, Fleetwood, certainly was the far more advantageous of routes exiting out of the opening night of their hosting duties without a shadow of a doubt.
Truth be told, it didn’t seem as if Ephrata had cooled down in any way, shape, or form following that aforementioned outburst against Boone. In fact, the Mounts proceeded to start Friday night off by knocking Fleetwood back into a 9-0 hole right of the chute courtesy of a triumvirate of triples sunk by way of Truskey and Grayson Shellhammer respectively just three minutes into the opening round affair.
But to their credit, the Tigers came back, almost reaching the summit, in their retaliatory bid.
For that, Fleetwood relied on the efforts of junior captain, Mason Senna, for an impromptu 5-0 rally which then preceded as 3-ball dialed up another of the Tigers’ team captains, senior Chris Sandt, as the visitors had suddenly sliced that large Ephrata lead down to a penny, 9-8, before the Mounts would carry the 12-8 lead with them into the second frame, all dozen points of which came exclusively from beyond the arc.
Needless to say, the opening quarter between those nonconference foes was one in which shared rallies back and forth largely told the story. Well, as if to be right on cue, so too the opening moments of the second stanza seem to follow suit.
Case in point, yet another Ephrata trifecta splashed down in the opening moments –this one via the handiwork of Shellhammer — before the Mounts’ first two-point field goal of the evening, an easy point-blank bunny chipped in by Truskey, saw the hosts’ lead swell upwards to a 17-8 count for a bit of early mojo in their favor.
Yet all that said, for a game in which Ephrata had in some ways largely felt to the naked eye to essentially be in control of, a plethora of Mounts’ turnovers most certainly helped to keep Fleetwood well within the fight.
Speaking of which, with Ephrata bogged down in the mud near the middle portions of the second period in particular, an old-fashioned three-point play compiled by Senna helped to close the window back down to a much more manageable difference, 19-14, with exactly 2:22 left to be played in the opening half by that point.
Fortunately for Ephrata, they just so happened to have an ace up their sleeve.
Alright. Maybe calling one of the foremost players who loudly burst onto the entire conference scene a year ago isn’t exactly keeping it “up your sleeve” perhaps, but seeing the Mounts play with the benefit of owning the lead while without utilizing the scoring services of Marqus Hardin yet to date was certainly a bit of a surprise. Even still, it’s not as if the Mounts’ talented senior off-guard was totally missing in action. But rightfully so, given the way in which he demonstrated his role of being a primary soothing and calming influence on his teammates –not acknowledging his snatching of offensive rebounds scores of times over either— Hardin was finally able to crack into the scoring column in the latter stages of the second quarter against Fleetwood, contributing the Mounts’ final offensive bucket of a first half in which they led by a 25-17 difference.
In the second half, though Hardin just continued to assert his role.
Here, with the third quarter starting to near its midway point and Fleetwood continuing to play the role of pesky house guests who simply refused to go away quietly, Hardin not so subtly helped to take things over.
For that evidence, look no further than his pair of buckets inside that came in successive fashion, the last of which via a lob in transition, upping the Ephrata lead out to a 31-21 margin with the Tigers forced into burning a timeout with 2:56 left to play in the period by that juncture.
But from there, the Mounts wouldn’t look back. Only forward and onto Saturday afternoon for their date with Palmyra waiting there for them in the championship round.
As far as the work that went into building and growing the Ephrata lead down the stretch of the third, Brayden Brown’s pair of buckets inside helped to make it a football score of 35-21, fitting with him being the Mounts’ all-star running back during the fall, before a determined take to the cup mere moments before the third quarter horn by Grayson Shellhammer propelled Ephrata into the final eight minutes with the benefit of possessing the 39-25 advantage.
Now, if you’re thinking and sensing that you’re seeing the same few names over and over from Ephrata’s perspective, you’re not exactly wrong in your viewpoint. To be sure, the Mounts were nothing if not well-rounded for the duration of Friday night against Fleetwoood in having their leading scorers of Hardin, Truskey, and Shellhammer carry the mail in terms of scoring behind 15 points posted by Truskey, and a dozen apiece respectively chipped in from Hardin and Shellhammer as well. With that in prevailing thought mind, seeing Shellhammer finish off a nice cut to the hoop with a bucket inside which came before Truskey burying yet another triple to his night’s work not long afterwards, that pair’s recent exploits in particular helped Ephrata enjoy the final 1:35 with the aid of the now-commanding 48-31 buffer.
Yet even in the waning stages, with those who had done the lion’s share of work in allowing their teammates on the bench the opportunity to get some action of their own, the Mounts who were sporting their warmups throughout nearly the entirety of the contest up until that point looked more than ripe at the opportunity to shine under the varsity bright lights. But perhaps none more so than Ephrata junior, Kolton Sweigart, as the Mounts’ 6’0 big helped to put the finishing touches on a productive night at the office as far he and his troops had to consider by virtue of Ephrata’s 52-34 opening round win against Fleetwood late on Friday night after Swigart’s late bucket in the paint.
In a twist of irony perhaps all things considered, while Ephrata at times offensively may have seemed to be mired by living in a state of constant fits and starts, Herbener himself was able to take things with a grain of positive salt given his perspective.
“Man, (Fleetwood) plays this 1-1-3 zone and I told our guys, ‘You will probably never see (a defense) like this again.’ It’s rare that we had this early in a year, but we had two days to prepare for a team,” Ephrata’s first-year coach remarked of the days leading up to Fleetwood. “But, we had to prepare almost the entirety of those two days in putting in things to go against that zone.”
“I think in these tournaments, where the setting isn’t exactly the same it is normally with the JV’s playing in an entirely different gym, the girls playing before us, just to get out of tonight and onto tomorrow is big,” he added. “Yeah, maybe our performance won’t exactly blow anyone away or anything like that if they go back and watch it, but that win was important to us. That was a big deal to us.”
Another big deal? Having your stars shine in primetime. Ala exactly what Marqus Hardin was able to go with the game teetering on the edge balance early on.
“In our first game, he had 13 points, 11 rebounds, and six assists,” Herbener rehashing Hardin’s opening line against Daniel Boone and his first time playing with him rather than against him as he did last year when he was coaching Twin Valley. “With Marqus, we talk to him all the time, ‘You can have such a positive impact on these games in so many more ways than just your scoring. Yeah, of course there’s games you’ll be on one and go off for like 20 or 25 points.’ But, to his credit, he’s really, really bought into that and being a complete player,” he said while lauding his senior. “For my money, I think he’s one of the best rebounding guards in the entire league. I think he had like six or seven rebounds tonight too. But yeah, he’s totally bought into being that well-rounded player.”
And for their troubles, Ephrata finds themselves with a title fight against Palmyra once the sun rises come Saturday. For some, these early season championships are something perhaps best described as frivolous to put it kindly. But not to Ephrata. They won’t be found apologizing to anyone if they happen to take their home tourney Saturday afternoon.
“We celebrate every single win. If you would’ve come back here earlier, you would’ve thought we already won that championship tonight,” Herbener said with a laugh. “You earn these. And honestly, that’s what we want for and from our guys. We hype this up. It’s not easy to win period. For our seniors, they only have so many varsity basketball games left. So yeah, we’ll definitely hype this up, but we know Palmyra is going to be excited too. I’ve always been big about celebrating every win,” the new –yet old—Mountaineer said in closing before adding “Whenever you can add the title of a championship onto it, I’m definitely all about it.”
But whether or not Ephrata does indeed supplant Palmyra and reveling in the spoils of victory later this weekend, this isn’t exactly the Mounts’ last gasp in trying to do so the remainder of this year. In fact, Ephrata will soon be found competing in the Northern Lebanon holiday tournament in just a few weeks, perhaps eventually taking that crown back home with them. Beyond that, considering how topsy-turvy L-L Section Two figures to be this season, who’s to say? Maybe any titles that Ephrata can claim during the course of the regular season will pale in comparison to what the Mounts are able to grab come the month of February. As mentioned, there’s reason for optimism in Mounts’ Country.
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