Manheim Central Answers Questions, Opens Defense Of Section Two Crown With Emphatic Performance As Barons Shoot Past E-Town In First Game Back After Early Season Recess
Written by: Andy Herr on December 16, 2023
This might be crazy to even suggest out loud and put into the ethos, but is it possible that the defending Section Two champs, the defending league runners up, and last year’s District 3-5A semifinalists could’ve been the Lancaster-Lebanon League’s biggest mystery team heading into the season? Well, maybe not as crazy or blasphemous as one may originally think.
Granted, there may be grounds for ample amounts of skepticism once you realize that arguably the greatest long-ball shooter that the league has ever seen –in very recent memory for sure if nothing else— take his talents to Lancaster Bible College which is exactly what the leading scorer on last year’s Manheim Central team, Trey Grube, did following his high school graduation this past spring. From there, following the departure of one of the best Barons to ever don the school colors on the hardwood, you had a cast of characters reentering the fold who were equally instrumental in their own right in propelling Manheim Central into the 5A state tournament field last, but the Barons’ would still have to replace the void in over 1,800 points which is what Grube offered to his squad over the course of his four-year varsity career.
For starters, how would Aaron Enterline, without much in the way of question the best pure athletic talent inside the entire conference do for an encore this winter after another successful football season which saw the Barons’ wideout earn a preferred walk-on spot to Penn State just this past week? And while this is a space reserved for hoops, what took everyone so long in that regard to send something his way? Anyways, after Enterline, you had the likes of Jackson Tracy, a fiery guard who plays with the upmost levels of confidence and swagger. From there, you had to account for the exploits put forth by rising senior forward, Sam Witmer, factoring into the equation, along with the freshman sensation who came along by leaps and bounds as last season wore along last year, Chase Book, now beginning his 10th grade year back on the varsity roster. And last not but certainly not least, a key cog in the entire engine who may not steal the show necessarily in terms of point production on a nightly basis, but whose hustle and leadership cannot be undervalued, largely buoyed by everything that comes with being the starting quarterback at a place like Manheim Central the last couple years, is the place where point guard Zac Hahn then enters into the equation in his own right.
So yeah, while Manheim Central had plenty of key names and faces back in the equation, roles and responsibilities would certainly have to be elevated along the way as this was in many ways a new look Barons’ crew entering 2023-24. But up until this point though, the returns on investment have seemed to be plentiful.
In fact, after winning the Red Lion Tip-Off Tournament not even a week after some of those aforementioned Barons just had their football seasons cut short in that postseason, Manheim Central found itself on the shelf for a week and then some after a 49-39 triumph over West York which moved the Barons up to 3-0 in the early days of this season’s campaign.
Their reward in doing nothing but practicing over the last couple of days? Opening the Section Two slate against their neighbors to the west in E-town.
Speaking of the Bears, they too were looking for a jolt of momentum coming into Friday night’s lid-lifter on divisional play. And while an 0-5 overall record certainly wasn’t the Bears had dreamed up heading into the regular season, E-town played perhaps their best game of the season thus far their last time out in forcing Lampeter-Strasburg to sweat plenty of bullets before the Pios eventually rode a shutout performance defensively inside the final quarter en route to a hard-earned 42-32 win that E-town made L-S fight for every inch of.
So, without much in the way of debate, Friday night at Doe Run Elementary School figured to at the very least provide some answers as what both Elizabethtown and Manheim Central could potentially add into the Section Two mix the rest of the way. Yet while the Barons may have begun the year with a giant question mark next to their name, rest assured that particular punctuation usage was quickly replaced with that of an exclamation mark instead by the end of the night.
Ironically, for a school whose identity is so intertwined and wrapped up into the game of football, one could say that the Barons blitzed E-town with an exotic package to start the game off on Friday night.
Hard to argue once Sam Witmer and Mason Rodgers began the night by firing in a pair of trifectas to lead off the scoring before a deuce by Witmer not long afterwards forced the Bears into calling a timeout while staring up at an 8-0 deficit with 4:38 left to play in the first.
Only problem was, Witmer wasn’t about to play nice.
Sure enough, even in the aftermath of E-town calling their early timeout to try and regroup, the Barons’ 6’3 stretch laid those plans to rest by firing in his second triple of the opening stanza, upping it to an 11-0 Manheim Central cushion with the Bears clearly knocked back on their heels.
Finally, and assuredly not a moment too soon for what the Bears’ contingent had to think, a timely 3-ball of their own dialed up 6’1 senior guard, Noah Locke, got the visitors on the board for the first time all evening.
From there though, Manheim Central just continued to keep the pedal down as a take to the rack by, you guessed it, Sam Witmer, put the Barons up by a baker’s dozen at 16-3 with E-town prompted into calling another quick timeout, this time with 1:46 still left to go in the first.
And while the Bears would be able to tally another field goal courtesy of another senior found in their rotation, Evan Hassinger, as the 6’2 wing’s jumper got E-town with a dozen at 19-7 with inside of a minute to play in the opening stanza, a football score proved to the eventual count after the opening eight minutes as Manheim Central sauntered into the second with the benefit of the 21-7 lead.
But not even the onset of a new quarter would provide much of anything when it came to slowing down Central on this night.
In fact, the Barons’ lead only grew larger in size and stature once junior guard, Ryan Kenneff, got into the act in his own right with a pair of takes to the cup which upped Manheim’s advantage to a 27-9 margin with 5:30 still in the half. As it turned out, unfortunately for E-town most specifically, that would be more than ample time for the star of the first half show, Sam Witmer, to cash in on one of his six triples on the evening, with this most recent one in particular making it a 30-12 Barons’ lead as the second quarter hit its halfway mark. From there, it was Aaron Enterline’s turn to make his first appearance in the scoring column as a nifty pair of chip shots inside tallied by the 6’3 senior wing made it a commanding 34-14 Manheim Central advantage with two minutes and change yet to go before the halftime break.
Yet for a first half that was so clearly and emphatically controlled on Manheim Central’s terms, it seemed only fitting that it conclude the way in which it did.
Did we mention by this point that Sam Witmer was a problem for E-town on Friday night? If not, perhaps yet another 3-ball to add onto his already scintillating night would do the trick with the second quarter clock rapidly winding down. And if that wasn’t already enough, how about the Barons’ shooting from beyond the arc in the opening 16 minutes being extremely contagious? In that case, how about when Enterline knifed and contorted his way through the lane before kicking it out to a wide open Jackson Tracy standing all by his lonesome in the corner with Tracy bombing in his own trifecta at the first half horn to make it a dramatic 40-14 Manheim Central lead with both teams retiring to their respective dressing rooms, albeit while riding two entirely different forms of an emotional state.
Suffice to say, with the bulk of the damage already having been authored by that point and the game teetering dangerously close to the mercy rule once the third quarter began, the question was whether E-town would be able to offer some sort of resistance and bite the elephant bit by bit, or if the Barons would ride the running clock home to the finish line. As fate would have it, it would prove to be the latter.
For that, Central’s Mason Rodgers tried to do his best at that making notion prove true as another one of the Barons’ snipers from the outside peppered in a triple of his own to then make it a 43-16 Manheim lead with the third quarter just getting its sea legs.
From the Bears’ perspective on the other hand, they decided to lean on the lanky 6’9 frame of freshman big man, Daniel Gilhool, to help them through their tough times on offense. In short, it seemed to work as Gilhool’s smooth touch from point-blank range helped give E-town a bit of solace in that not many programs around the area can lean on molding and working with a big man who possesses an incredibly high ceiling and upside such as Gilhool.
But harkening back to the aspect of the running clock, that would come to fruition in a very literal sense once, yep, Sam Witmer, took his act inside the arc once again with a three-point play of the old-fashioned variety this time around as Witmer’s hoop plus the harm made it a 51-21 ballgame with 4:26 still left to play in the third by that time. And if you’re wondering about Witmer’s exploits on the whole as far as Friday night was concerned, how about scoring two more than his jersey number as the multi-faceted senior would go on to conclude his sensational night at office by contributing a game-high 27 points to aid in the Barons’ collective cause.
Again though, while perhaps the eventual outcome was nothing more than a formality by that juncture, good luck telling that to the E-town troops given the way in which they continued to fight and battle inside the second half.
If you want that proof, look no further than a pair of dead-eye treys knocked down via the handiwork of 5’10 guard, Collin Cooper, as the E-town senior promptly added six more to his eventual team-high total of 14 once the night was through.
However, just when they may have gotten the inkling that things were starting ever so slightly to turn things over in their direction, Manheim Central was there to steal the show in that regard too.
And as if to be in a manner that clearly epitomized as to why this was Manheim Central’s night without much in the way of E-town being able to counter against it otherwise, an off-balance triple knocked down by 5’10 junior, Kyle Mylin, seemed more than apropos as the headband-wearing guard’s shot before falling out of bounds with the clock hitting all zeroes propelled the Barons into the final eight minutes with the aid of a 59-27 lead.
In the fourth quarter, that too seemed to contain the makings of a Barons’ coronation of sorts.
Fittingly, as hard as he too had played once he was awarded with an opportunity to get out onto the floor, 6’0 junior, Landon Zeiset, was able to score en route to the hoop as the long and rangy Zeiset was able to make it a 65-28 Manheim Central lead with the aspect of the running clock making the fourth quarter’s possessions all the more precious.
From the E-town perspective, it seemed as if Carter Torborg understood that when he too was given a chance to compete.
And not for nothing, but with Torborg being the second of two freshman getting minutes inside the Bears’ overall rotation, there’s reason for optimism for years to come inside Bears’ camp as the freshman’s bucket and hard-nosed steal courtesy of his on-ball work defensively helped to give E-town a bit of jolt with the game entering its final stages.
That said, even while Torborg and the likes of his fellow Bears would continue to fight and claw up until the final gun, there was little in the way of doubt as to who this night had belonged to as Manheim Central was able to put the finishing touches on a remarkable 65-30 final victory over E-town on Friday night to not only remain unbeaten, but also to move to 1-0 in section play while also coming off a considerable absence from game action.
“I didn’t know what to expect,” a happy Barons’ head coach in Charlie Fisher said in the aftermath on Friday with a laugh. “It’s one those things that a coach thinks, and I don’t know if a player thinks this, but I love the break. I love the brain break,” said Fisher of his team’s time of the shelf this past week and change. “After the West York game, I drove home thinking, ‘Man, this is nice not to be thinking about the next one tonight,’ he continued to add in jest. “But we went in (to the break) with the mindset of we have to get fresh. For our guys that didn’t play football, we put them through a tough preseason. So, have those guys get their legs fresh. But at the same time, get Aaron, Zac, and Jayvior (Morales), get their legs under them and get them back accustomed to basketball. It was so beneficial.”
Of course, when the team can take ownership of itself from the inside, no coach worth his salt will ever turn that idea down either, especially with the season still being in its infancy such as it is.
“Our seniors, Jackson Tracy, Sammy (Witmer), Aaron (Enterline), and Zac (Hahn), they’ve just have been so tremendous at practice to where we’ve been able to do so many things. Jackson leads the way vocally. He’s our vocal leader. But a guy like Sammy, with what he did tonight, he’s a lead by example guy and that’s what is so nice with the two of them in particular where you have that ying and yang.”
Not only that, but when you can get someone who has the gift of gab such as Charlie Fisher struggle at putting the right words together, maybe that right there should lend more than enough credence as to what this senior class most of all means to him.
“It’s hard to describe,” Fisher lauded of the 2024 senior group. “The four seniors, they have their good and bad moments whether it’s on the court, practice, whatever, but they just bring an overall sense of calm to everything. I said this to the whole team, but all four of them bring something different to the table. It’s just really tremendous with what the four of them have done,” Fisher added. “They’ve grown up together, they’ve played together, and they’re Manheim kids. All four of them are Manheim kids. It’s really nice to have that group of kids together and that they all want to accomplish something. But there again, that all helps with that shared experience piece. The seniors have that experience and then the young guys have skill and length. It all helps just figuring out that flow and putting the pieces together.”
And if Friday night was to serve as any sort of precursor of what may lie ahead, it figures to be another fruitful winter in Manheim this year. Now, the task at hand involves keeping everyone’s head of out the clouds, feet on the ground, and not putting the proverbial cart before the horse so to speak.
“I can’t speak for other coaches in situations like these, but tonight our message was just to play hard,” the Manheim Central boss said of what was spoken about back in the locker room pregame. “Don’t assume, just play hard. I don’t remember who said it, I probably should, but that whole thing of ‘That’s why you play the game,’ that’s exactly what you do,” he remarked with that ever-present laugh. “You have to play, and you have to be ready for a battle. I mean, last year E-town got us late in the year here at home. It’s just one of those things where we just want to make that every game we come into, we’re coming in with the mindset of being ready to win a basketball game.”
Not only that, but while the Barons’ quick start of out chute in is impressive, perhaps the scariest part of all is that this Manheim Central unit is far from the finished product just yet.
“We’re cleaning up our offense and getting our sets down. We also put in a new offense this week,” said Fisher with the grin of a Cheshire cat. “I don’t know when we’re going to run it and bring it out, but there’s a new offense in there. We tweaked some of our defenses, put in some new defensives, a new look, but it’s one of things where we had to rep it all this week. We need to rep it,” he was quick to point out. “We made great use of this past week getting shots up, getting more comfortable with the ball, and just getting more comfortable with each other. When you get into a new year regardless of whether it’s the same guys or different, you have to get a flow established. We have a lot of the same guys, but it’s a different team. It’s a different look. It’s a different style. We just need to get used to playing that style. Tonight, I thought we did a tremendous job of moving the ball, getting the extra pass, and attacking the gaps when they were there.”
Sure, while it may be just one game standing alone, it’d be hard not to expect big things coming of Barons’ camp yet again this season if performances like this one put forth against E-town are going to far and away be the norm rather than the exception.
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