In Season That Began With Championship Aspirations, Milton Hershey Nudges One Step Closer As Spartans Cruise Past Octorara, Rumble Into District 3-5A Championship Bout Against West York
Written by: Andy Herr on February 25, 2026
Truthfully, if you were to have taken an unscientific straw poll on the teams that figured to make a run at the District 3 title in just two years’ time in 2024, you probably wouldn’t have picked a team that had just put the wraps on a 3-18 campaign that season.
Then again, if you would’ve looked beyond the surface and dug deeper than just that overall record, you would’ve seen that there was a plentiful bounty of young talent lodged on their roster.
For the Milton Hershey Spartans, while the struggles of the 2023-24 season might now seem like the memory of a bygone era, the shared learning experiences that came that year for a raw freshman named Abdou Diene with undeniable upside, a bouncy sophomore guard found in Khlaif Turner, and a budding freshman big man by the name of Dylan Crawford, a triumvirate who found themselves inside the top 8 of the Spartans’ scoring punch that season, going through those trials and tribulations figured to lay the groundwork for what would soon follow.
Then again, no one might’ve seen this coming.
14 wins. That’s the tangible level of improvement that Milton Hershey was able to make from 2024 and into 2025 as the Spartans finished last year with a 17-10 overall mark, not the least of which included besting their previous season’s win total in just the fourth game of the season alone on December 13th. In fact, the Spartans went from not even flirting with the postseason in 2024 to making it all the way to the PIAA state playoffs within a year before ultimately falling to Montour in the first round of the 5A statewide bracket last March.
And this season, shoot, even before the season if we’re being perfectly honest, Milton Hershey was already the talk of the local high school hoops scene within the mid-state.
Granted, while you absolutely need to take what you see during the summer league circuit with a massive grain of salt, the sheer dominance that Milton Hershey was routinely putting on opponents on an every night basis over at Spooky Nook this past summer made everyone talk – even those who just saw the Spartans play by happenstance. In fact, Milton Hershey’s month-long performance over the month of June was so emphatic that reasonable minds could’ve easily seen a day come late February where the chocolate and gold were seen lifting a district championship trophy into the air.
Spooky Nook Sightings- Vol. I – LLhoops.com
Which brings us here to late February.
While it’s true that Milton Hershey figured to be one of the darlings of District 3 this year as mentioned within the 5A rank and file, this season-long jaunt has maybe been even more impressive than originally foretold.
3-18 you say from a couple years ago? How about a 22-3 record now coming into the Spartans’ district semifinal round game on Tuesday night. Beyond that, how about beating their literal neighbors just up the road, Hershey High, as the Trojans completed a clean sweep over the reigning District 3-5A champs and state runners up this season for even more added spice and flair.
And in the truest evidence as to just how far the Spartans have come in just two seasons, remember that trio of Diene, Turner and Crawford? Well, not only are they back in the fold for what are now their junior and senior seasons respectively, but they are also Milton Hershey’s top three leading scorers on the year in 2025-26, the only ones who have average clips of double figures as a matter of fact.
But as the teams in the brackets wane, the easiness in competition remaining most certainly does not. With that in mind, Milton Hershey saw Tuesday night’s semifinal round bout bring with it the arrival of the Octorara Braves, a grizzled team of destiny in its own right seeing as how the Braves also rely on a heavy upperclassmen presence while en route to their 24-2 record accrued this year, a team’s whose lone loss within the District 3 realm came at the hands of Lancaster Mennonite in the Lancaster-Lebanon League championship game two weeks ago.
Problem was, for as successful and dominant as both these two teams had been this season, only one would earn the right to play on for a district championship on Thursday night.
And almost right from the opening tap, it became apparent that Milton Hershey didn’t seem interested in the least in having this contest be filled with any sort of drama or suspense.
If a fast start is what the Spartans came out of the locker room seeking against Octorara, rest assured they did just that. In fact, after racing out to a 9-0 over the course of the game’s first four minutes, they would hold their guests scoreless before the Braves would finally crack their own scoring seal by way of a pair of Lazo Christou freebies at the charity stripe which made it a 9-2 ballgame with 3:59 left showing on the first quarter clock.
However, Octorara would only continue to wait when it came to finally being able to tally their first field goal of the evening.
And until that time, Milton Hershey’s lead had eventually climbed upward to double figures at 12-2 following a 3-ball sunk by way of Khalif Turner before a bucket inside chipped in by way of Dylan Crawford then made it a 15-2 Spartans’ cushion with roughly one minute left to play in the opening frame.
Finally, courtesy of Karter Lambert at long last being able to connect from beyond the arc, the Braves would finally notch their first – and only – field goal of the opening eight minutes of play once the lone Octorara junior in the starting lineup splashed in a trifecta which made it a 15-5 ballgame, the same score which remained set in stone once the final 30 seconds evaporated off the first quarter clock.
Even still, while the first quarter proved that Milton Hershey was likely an opponent altogether different that the Braves hadn’t yet seen encountered previously in respect to the Spartans’ embarrassments of size, speed, physicality (and any other positive adjective of the like), the existing hill only grew steeper for the visitors by way of Chester County once the second act got underway on Tuesday.
Sure enough, following fast break layups at the cup finished off from Turner and junior forward Thomas Brown respectively, Octorara was quickly prompted into spending a timeout a mere 58 seconds into the second quarter with their deficit now standing at a 22-7 threshold.
From there, Turner, the eventual game-high scorer on the evening who tossed in a sultry 24-point body of work, awarded the hosts their largest lead of the night at that point, 18, as another Turner bucket at the cup made it a 29-11 ballgame with another five minutes still left outstanding before the halftime intermission.
Finally, even while having to navigate against these stern and persistent headwinds they had to chart against in the form of their hosts, Octorara gradually settled down and began to warm to the fight.
Then, after seeing the possibility of going down by 20 points inside of the first half suddenly looking and seeming like a very real possibility, Octorara gradually brought themselves to within 10 following a smooth pullup jumper sunk by Christou, making it a 29-19 count with 3:30 left in the half.
Later, the gap dwindled down even further once the Braves’ leading scorer on the season, Vito Vespe, connected on a 3-ball, a three-point addition to what would become his team-high 13-point evening, making it a 31-22 ballgame with inside of a minute left to play before the break.
Finally, even despite having been outplayed by what felt to the naked eye like a considerable difference, Octorara nonetheless got out of dodge relatively unharmed all things considered once both teams retired to their respective dressing rooms with the Braves having more than just a puncher’s chance while down by a modest 31-24 score following the game’s first 16 minutes in withstanding more than a few Spartans’ haymakers lobbed in their direction.
Speaking of haymakers though, Milton Hershey was about to land a TKO once they returned to begin the second half.
How about a pair of triples sunk within the first two possessions? Well, that idea must’ve sounded quite appeasing to Boyega Awofiranye and Khalif Turner considering how the senior tandem tossed in one each to help get their fellow troops off on the right foot to begin the third act.
From there, the finishing touches on what would crystallize into a 11-0 Milton Hershey jaunt to begin the third could come on a Turner trey knocked down in transition which saw the Spartans’ lead expand out to a 42-24 gap over the first 2:07 of the third once Octorara called yet another timeout to try and stop this recent bout of bleeding.
Soon thereafter, the Braves would indeed receive a reprieve of sorts in the form of their most recent 1,000-point career scorer, Vincent Thaler, as the Braves’ rangy wing finished off an old-fashioned three-point play through contact shortly thereafter which saw Octorara score their first second half points while also making it a 42-27 game with the penultimate quarter spiraling towards its halfway point.
Even still, Milton Hershey’s hospitality in allowing a possible Octorara rebuttal remained nonexistent.
Case in point, another bucket from beyond the arc, this one via Awofiranye, a double digit scorer in his own right on the night in chipping in 12 to aid the collective cause, which saw the Spartans reclaim their largest lead of the evening at 18, 49-31, with now just a tick inside of four minutes left in the period. After that, the Milton Hershey lead would bubble up to its largest yet seen, 51-31, following a pair of free throws knocked down by Abdou Diene one minute later.
Turns out, while that 20-point gap would change various forms over the final few minutes and change inside the third stanza, such as when 6’3 sophomore center, Thomas Brown, came up with a pair of bunnies at the cup which made it a 57-37 game, it would remain a firm margin all the same considering how the Spartans carried a commanding 59-39 lead with them into the final eight minutes.
But by that point, barring one of those patented Octorara comeback bids such as what the Braves achieved against Cocalico which helped them reach this very game, the eventual outcome of this game was all about sewn up.
For if it wasn’t, Milton Hershey’s Jabron James certainly did his best to make sure it was considering how the Spartans’ sophomore guard came up with a three-point play to begin the game’s final act before then finishing off a sweet Euro-step move at the cup the very time down the floor which saw James as the sole party responsible for making it a 25-point Spartans’ buffer once the curtain rose on the final frame.
Speaking of James, he would proceed to go on in sharing in runner-up scoring honors alongside Diene and Awofiranye with this trio each finishing with a dozen points respectively next to their names, a feat which James helped achieve for himself by tallying two more buckets in successive fashion inside the fourth quarter as these most recent in the stretch made it a 70-41 Spartans’ lead before a pair of Chase Fetrow 3-balls for Octorara helped to stem the tide somewhat while also averting the Braves from seeing the mercy-rule inflicted upon them.
Then, with time winding down, Khalif Turner opted for the exclamation mark on the night by finishing off his own bounce pass to himself en route to a two-handed dunk which saw the margin reach a 76-49 score.
Lastly, after receiving a rousing ovation to go in once his number was called from the adjacent Milton Hershey student body, Treyvyon Courts made the most of his brief appearance by coming up with a take to the rack as the Spartans’ 5’11 junior guard drew one of the louder crowd pops of the entire evening with time winding down.
And once the dust had settled with the final score reading out in the form of an 81-55 final verdict in favor of Milton Hershey, this was one instance in which the score largely didn’t contain many falsehoods within it. For as this Milton Hershey squad demonstrated from wire-to-wire on Tuesday night, this is a Spartans crew that came in on a mission – a mission to add something(s) into the school’s trophy case this winter. This year, while they’ve already bagged an undisputed Mid-Penn Keystone crown to their credit, don’t fault this group if they have bigger goals and aspirations found beyond just that of a section title. Now, after this thoroughly dominant showing against arguably one of the L-L League’s best outfits this season found in Octorara, Milton Hershey has positioned themselves all of 32 minutes away from locking up the distinction of being labeled the best 5A team in all of District 3. For a core group that just a few years ago only knew the number 3 to be that of their total number of wins, there might not be nothing more fitting than showing just far they’ve come. Yes, all in just two years’ time.
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