Lancaster Mennonite ‘Trusts The Situation’ As Blazers Withstand Wild Momentum Swings To Prevail Past Mahanoy, Surge Into First State Semifinal Since 2018

Written by: Andy Herr on March 18, 2023

There’s a phrase out there that says, “Two things can be true at once.” Simple and innocuous, yes, but never has a quote personified a high school boys’ basketball team more than this 2022-23 Lancaster Mennonite bunch perhaps.

Yes, while it remains as true as ever that making your conference tournament, winning three-straight district championships, and then making a deep run throughout the state playoffs are notable feats that should rightly be celebrated, it could also be argued at very same instant that this has been, to steal another famous line, “Business as usual,” for the Blazers this season.

You see, while the other teams that make up the Lancaster-Lebanon League may have stolen the collective limelight and attention throughout the dog days of the regular season back in December and January, chances were that Mennonite would eventually end up carrying the banner for the entire league once push finally came to shove and the PIAA state tourney got underway last week.

And true to form, it’s been another scintillating display throughout Pennsylvania’s 2A dance thus far seeing as how the Blazers found themselves in familiar territory early Saturday at Governor Mifflin. Yes, while also bearing the honor of serving as the L-L’s lonesome solider yet again once this weekend rolled around.

Why familiar territory you ask? Well, because this particular matchup against Mahanoy on Saturday in Shillington marked five of the last six tournaments in which the Blazers had been able to advance through and into at least the quarterfinal round of states in years where the tournament reached its eventual conclusion, a downright incredible feat for a small, yet proud program that surely doesn’t get receive enough local attention as the achievement probably commands on its own merits. 

Now granted, while you could argue that making it this far may have already been baked into Mennonite’s likely story going all way back to when preseason practices started up around Thanksgiving given the bevy of talented and battle-tested upperclassmen reentering the fold for the Blazers, this game right here might have proven to be the eventual fork in the road. For it would likely be here where Mennonite would eventually run into Constitution from the famed Philadelphia Public League, a formidable team that has made routine trips to the Giant Center and the state finals in each of the last two seasons.

Of course, that was before the Mahanoy Golden Bears had anything to say about it.

Sure, while the attention of basketball fans these past couple of days has probably been solely focused on the other tournament that a four-letter governing body puts on, the NCAA’s, there was another upset found inside the boys’ PIAA-2A field that might have caused some to do a double-take. However, it’d be hard to call it an upset if you were to simply glance at the final score alone considering how District 11’s champion was able to absolutely blitz the Generals by way of Philly to the tune of a 58-40 final verdict, a decisive margin of victory that put it closer to that of the mercy rule than that of an outcome in doubt. But as was the case with Lancaster Mennonite, one does not magically put forth a district championship caliber campaign –much less a glitzy 22-4 overall record heading into the penultimate weekend of the season– without being a worthy adversary for the opposition.

Even still, for a Mennonite crew that almost didn’t even make it out of the first round had it not been for somehow staving off Davion Hill’s jaw-dropping 50-point performance in St. John Neumann’s opening round loss to the Blazers last Saturday afternoon, the opponent in the Elite Eight round likely didn’t much matter to them. After all, even when much is expected of you, almost having your dreams ripped right out from underneath you surely provides the wherewithal to not take anyone lightly, even if it may happen to be an opponent you perhaps didn’t expect to see awaiting your arrival in the very next round.

And while it would have to be described as anything but smooth sailing throughout, Lancaster Mennonite was indeed able to stand with their feet firmly planted on the ground while inside the walls of a basketball hurricane thrown at them on Saturday afternoon by proceeding to come up with the program’s biggest victory enjoyed over the course of the last six years.

Rest assured, if there was even the slightest bit of interpretation as to whether Mahanoy had gotten the Blazers’ attention right from the opening tap, those worries were quickly put to bed in the opening few minutes of play.

Ironically enough, ignited by a pair of David Weaver blocks on the defensive end that in turn fueled runout opportunities with Cam Hurst on the receiving end of things with subsequent layups, Mennonite had jumped their opposition to the tune of a 6-0 lead with not even two minutes having gone by.

From there, the Blazers’ cushion would swell upward to double figures, 10-0, following a silky smooth pullup jumper knocked down by 5’10 senior guard Savier Sumrall with already half of the opening frame already having been expired and the Bears having not yet scored.  

And yet, even when Mahanoy had finally cracked that pesky goose egg up on the scoreboard following a 3-ball knocked down by 5’10 sophomore sniper Tanner Zawada, the Lancaster Mennonite advantage just as quickly increased to a dozen after a trifecta of their own was cashed in via the efforts of 6’7 senior post presence, David Weaver, making it a 15-3 contest with 1:25 still to go in the first.

That said, for an opening eight minutes that was so clearly bathed in the yellow and black school colors of Lancaster Mennonite, Mahanoy certainly had to like their current positioning once the first quarter horn eventually sounded. In truth, it would be a late salvo with appreciation needing to be heaped in Zawada’s direction as his second trey of the opening act helped cut Lancaster Mennonite’s lead down to a somewhat pedestrian 16-7 count all things considered.

But the Golden Bears just kept right on attacking.

In fact, that early ten-point bulge had been cut directly in half at 5:30 mark of the second quarter once Mahanoy’s Kadin Styka promptly cashed in on a pair of free throws for what would quickly become a foul fest wedged inside the second quarter as the Bears’ junior forward’s trip to the charity stripe made it an 18-13 ballgame.

However, when the going gets tough and the atmosphere inside the gym is at a fever pitch, it must be nice to rely on an all-state talent, yes? Fortunately for Lancaster Mennonite, they have that in 6’2 senior guard Cam Hurst.

As if to be right on cue and his team starting to perhaps topple overboard in the face of the ongoing Golden Bears’ onslaught, Hurst proceeded to come right down the floor and bury a momentum-killing triple to aid in the Blazers’ cause before then finishing off another fast break opportunity in transition to make it a 23-17 Mennonite lead with 3:36 left to play in the opening half.

Undeterred though, Mahanoy continued to throw volleys over the fence.

For that, it’d be easy to point to a hard-earned bucket inside tallied by 6’4 junior forward Brady Alansky that chipped the Mennonite lead down to five, 25-20, with a hair inside of two minutes left before the halftime recess.

But as he would do throughout the course of the entire afternoon, Savier Sumrall would prove himself to be the calming presence for what Lancaster Mennonite required when pushed up against the ropes.

Granted, it wasn’t as if the Blazers’ 5’10 senior guard was exactly a synonym of timid on this day, something best exemplified by his willingness to be the textbook definition of a pest defensively before in turn having those exploits carry over onto the offensive end of things. Case in point, his enormous triple knocked home with the first half winding down as his three-point addition to what would end in a well-rounded 19-point outing helped usher Lancaster Mennonite into the break with the wind of a 28-22 lead at their backs once halftime rolled around.

Even still, while Mahanoy had displayed nothing but the upmost fight and resiliency in face of the early hole that Mennonite had thrown them into, the fact of the matter was that even despite their best efforts, the Golden Bears could never quite get over the hump and take command of the scoreboard. Unfortunately, for those had traversed southward from the state’s coal region on this day, that very same narrative would continue to ring true inside the final 16 minutes as well.

Here again, while Mennonite would go back up by seven at 31-24 following a Cam Hurst 3-ball, a small peppering of the all-stater’s game-high 29-point display once the dust had finally settled, a triple from the Mahanoy side, this via the efforts of 6’0 sophomore guard Jace Yedsena, allowed the Bears to claw back within four and the third quarter continuing to pick up steam.

As mentioned though, while he may not exactly be on the top of opponent’s scouting reports on Lancaster Mennonite, you certainly bet that Savier Sumrall commands respect nonetheless. And at the end of this day in particular, rest assured that he certainly has Mahanoy’s.

Here again, with the tide and sheer fervor treating the Blazers like that of a headwind, turning the keys of the car over to Sumrall proved itself to be a wise move on Lancaster Mennonite’s part.

For the specifics of it all, a pair of back-breaking treys chipped in by the underrated senior guard helped to not only turn things back around in Mennonite’s direction, but Sumrall’s six-point swing more importantly would up the Blazers’ lead to a 41-31 count with just inside of two minutes still left to expire off the third quarter clock.

And from there, after playing what could only be described as the basketball-equivalent of a wrestling match all day long up until that point, Mennonite’s David Weaver remained stone-faced and stoic after having completed a gargantuan three-point play that made it a 44-31 Blazers’ lead with 1:10 left to play in the third frame. Then, for the exclamation mark on what had proven to be a decisive late third quarter rally to push Mahanoy away for good, Mennonite’s heart and determination was able to show itself in the form of a relentless David Shell offensive rebound that led to a, you guessed it, Savier Sumrall 3-ball, as the Blazers were able to saunter into the final eight minutes with the commanding 48-31 lead to their benefit.

So, with the fourth quarter largely figuring to be something akin to that of a Lancaster Mennonite coronation, the task at hand for the Blazers inside the final eight minutes was to keep their foot firmly on the accelerator and not let any possible peek of daylight into the Golden Bears’ camp. Suffice to say, those instructions were assuredly heeded.

Fittingly, after having done the dirty work of collecting an offensive rebound that in turn led to points just moments prior, Mennonite’s David Shell was able to reap his own rewards once the fourth quarter ultimately did commence as the 5’8 senior sparkplug’s triple put the Blazers on the verge of eclipsing the 20-point threshold as Mennonite then found themselves enjoying the fruits of a 52-33 lead.

Next, on the Blazers’ ensuing defensive possession following Shell’s trey, a clean rejection of a would-be Mahanoy shot was emphatically erased by one Cam Hurst, effectively signifying that this had evolved itself into a perfect marriage of Lancaster Mennonite using both their offensive and defensive prowess to come within minutes of reaching the unofficial 2A eastern final on Saturday afternoon.  

And yes, while the Bears would continue to keep swinging down the stretch, something exemplified in the wake of a pair of triples sunk by Kadin Styka and Chris Cuff respectively that made it a 55-41 ballgame with 3:45 left to play, an apropos 3-ball splashed in by Sumrall roughly a minute afterwards helped to cement Lancaster Mennonite’s eventual 64-44 triumph over Mahanoy into stone once the final two minutes and change evaporated off the game clock for a win which would vault the Blazers into their first statewide Final Four appearance since their memorable 2017-18 campaign.

Of course, the overwhelming element of at play surrounding everything here is that had it not been for their miraculous victory last Saturday at home, none of this would have even been possible. Something certainly not lost on the Blazers’ head coach either.

“Yeah, my assistant coaches and I have talked quite a bit how that (the opening round win) was really good for us. It made us a better team,” Lancaster Mennonite head coach Seth Buckwalter stated while still in the glow of his team’s 20-point workmanlike victory this Saturday afternoon, a far cry from the white-knuckle 62-61 verdict against St. John Neumann found seven days prior. “Since last year, it’s been a bit of an unspoken goal to say that we have the team to go further than last year,” he continued when referencing last year’s squad that bowed out in the state quarterfinal round. “This situation, I just feel super thankful for it. Guys are healthy at the moment. It takes a lot to get to this point. A lot of things have to go your way, so I’m just very thankful.”

But as mentioned off the top, making it this far in the state dance has become slightly old hat from Mennonite’s perspective. Just as the temperatures increase upward in the month of March, so too does the Blazers’ stock and overall upside across the commonwealth. That too is not something that Buckwalter takes for granted by any stretch of imagination.

“You just kind of smile,” the Blazers’ head coach would say without hesitation when asked how it felt to oversee what has morphed into one of the state’s foremost power brokers pound-for-pound.  “The players we have, to get to work with these guys, sometimes I’m like, ‘We can do anything. These guys are going to make stuff happen.’ Even with the decision-making tonight, it’s been like that for years,” Buckwalter continued.  “It’s families that come up through this system, or their parents were in the system, and they value it. Again, just very thankful.”

However, when you find yourself at this stage of the season with what now amounts to a 50% chance of reaching the state final, much less a 25% chance of hoisting that precious gold trophy come next Friday afternoon on the floor of the Giant Center, stars can help lead the way, but teams are undeniably what are still left standing. Simply put, Lancaster Mennonite is the epitome of that and then some, especially during the course of Saturday’s matinee where things could’ve gone wildly different for them had they not stayed true to the moment and instead lashed out at some calls which were, and also weren’t, necessarily going in their favor.

“These guys have just matured a ton. We tell David (Weaver) all the time and we prepared David two years ago up to now,” said Buckwalter of how his squad, most specifically David Weaver, was able to remain relatively even keeled in what at times felt like chaos on this day specifically. “Now, he looks at me and says, ‘I’m good. I’m good.’ Instead of me saying, ‘Dude, settle down.’ Now he looks at me says, ‘Nah, I’m good,’” the Mennonite head coach would add of his senior big man who routinely finds himself as the literal center of any game’s particular narrative as it evolves. “But they’ve been through it all year. (Weaver) has been pushed around, Cam (Hurst) has been held onto, Savier (Sumrall) has been hacked, so these guys have been through it. They know that if they play through it, it’ll work out if they just trust the situation.”

And now, the situation at large is that Lancaster Mennonite finds itself just 32 minutes away from making its first-ever trip to the state championship should they be able to get past Scranton’s Holy Cross at a time and place to be determined come Tuesday night.

“Last year, we watched them play right before us when they just barely lost to Constitution in the quarterfinals,” Buckwalter would say when asked if he peeked at the 2023 Crusaders at all yet. “I know (Holy Cross) runs really good stuff. Their defense is very disciplined. It’s a team that will probably have some size, skilled size, so we’ll see.”

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