Manheim Township Reverses Fortunes, Prevails In Tight Section One Affair At Home As Blue Streaks ‘Take’ Game Against McCaskey To Help Create Crowded Pack Inside Divisional Standings

Written by: Andy Herr on January 26, 2024

If there’s one thing that we’ve learned throughout this season when talking about Section One of Lancaster-Lebanon League boys’ basketball, it’s obviously this… It’s uhhh…Umm….Hang on a sec here….It’s umm.. Dang. Looking back on it, have we really been able to glean much of anything tangible that we can hang on our hats on when it comes to this wacky division thus far in 2023-24?

Sure, there’s the favorites there near the top of the heap such a Cedar Crest, Hempfield, and Penn Manor to name a few , but literally everyone has fallen victim to the basketball-induced cannibalism that has besieged this section this winter. Let’s just run thru everyone here for a moment for a bit of visual evidence to better help illuminate the overall discussion point.

Cedar Crest– Sweep Hempfield. Beat Penn Manor (sans Ethan Benne) by a whopping 44 points. Lose to Penn Manor in the return game. Complete a nearly 20-point fourth quarter deficit to win in double overtime on the road at Manheim Township.

Hempfield– Lose both regular season meetings to Cedar Crest. Also win on the road in overtime at Township. Hold off a late Blue Streaks’ charge to win by six in the rematch. Beat Penn Manor at home in Landisville by 20. Win by 20 on the road at McCaskey despite trailing by 10 at the half.

Lebanon– Follow up a nearly 50-point setback on the road at Manheim Township before making McCaskey earn every bit of a five-point overtime triumph in the Cedars’ house in their next return to Section One action. 

Penn Manor– Suffer the Cedar Crest loss back in December as mentioned. Follow up the first Hempfield setback in the first meeting their next time out by completing a frantic 23-4 fourth quarter rally to win going away at Lebanon in a 62-43 final score which still isn’t truly indicative of how well the Cedars had played that evening. From there, lose at the horn to Township in Millersville by a single point before then jumping back into divisional play on Tuesday night and reversing course on that earlier 44-point loss to Cedar Crest and coming away with arguably the program’s biggest win in quite some time with 65-49 triumph to topple the Falcons and them down a peg or two.

McCaskey– Drop their first game on the road at Penn Manor. Win on the road at Lebanon, but in needing overtime to do so. Come back home and beat Township by double digits, 65-55, to go above .500 in league play. See a 10-point halftime lead slip away to Hempfield before unfortunately falling to the Black Knights and Cedar Crest by a combined 36 points with both taking place at home. Then, hold serve at home by completing the season sweep in the “city series” against Lebanon at home on Tuesday evening.

Manheim Township– Knock off Section Two’s E-town by 30 at home. Beat Lebanon by a 70-26 final verdict at home. Get the better of the current Section Two frontrunner, Warwick, 42-39 in the Warriors’ house. Drop a tough two-point game at home to Hempfield in overtime. Lose by 10 at McCaskey before cruelly seeing a nearly 20-point fourth quarter lead against Cedar Crest evaporate into a double OT loss at the hands of the Falcons before turning right around and showing no battle wounds whatsoever in returning to action and stunning Penn Manor in Millersville. Proceed to drop back in the metaphorical Section Two race with a 45-42 defeat at the hands of Conestoga Valley. From there, nearly complete a dizzying comeback bid at Hempfield on Tuesday night before falling short by just half a dozen.

So… Can anyone else make any sense of that jumbled word salad and turn it into any real data and analytical-type trends? Don’t feel bad. As someone who follows this thing on a nightly basis, I too can’t make sound judgement or reasoning in the nightly goings on inside the league’s foremost crop of teams.

But if there was one thing that comes part in parcel with of the back-and-forth nature that has enveloped Section One this season, it’s that everything is still up for grabs with nothing at all truly being crystallized quite yet. Case in point, while most of the audience’s attention now likely heads to the Hempfield and Penn Manor contest slated to take place in Millersville on Friday night following the Comets’ takedown of Cedar Crest earlier this week, those last two teams mentioned in the (sort of) brief synopsis there were playing a pretty large game in their own right on Thursday night in Neffsville.

Believe or it not, for all the relative chaos that has made up this particular division this year, the undeniable aspect to it all was that most everyone still has some sort of a realistic shot at making the league tourney field in a couple of weeks whether it be by reality or a mathematical prayer becoming answered. And sure, while the Friday night backyard tussle between Hempfield and Penn Manor is right to be viewed as the preeminent battle for second-place behind Cedar Crest at this moment in time, don’t overlook the fact that the McCaskey Red Tornado could just as quickly find themselves locked in a three-way tie for second come the weekend provided that Penn Manor knocks off Hempfield which would in turn create a logjam of a triumvirate of 3-3 squads vying for position with just a couple of weeks remaining.

But lurking just a game behind McCaskey heading into Thursday? Their hosts, the Manheim Township Blue Streaks.

Now, in the event that Township would be able to topple their visitors from the nearby city, while the Streaks wouldn’t be able to exactly vault all the way into second place despite a possible victory found against the Tornado come late Friday night depending on the Hempfield/Penn Manor result, they could however be wedged right in the middle of a three-horse race at 3-4 amongst the group provided that Hempfield in turn would get the better of Penn Manor.

Needless to say, especially with those pair of heartbreakers suffered on their home floor most especially, the home floor of the league championship game itself no less, those two overtime setbacks at the hands of Hempfield and Cedar Crest understandably loom large like imposing storm clouds on the Streaks’ overall resume posted thus far.

Yet even still, as this year has so clearly taught us, it’s never safe to arrive at any gym with a preconceived notion of pretty much anything not just within Section One, but all of the L-L this season quite frankly one could reasonably argue. With that in mind, that’s what largely made this particular McCaskey/Township affair so appealing.

On this night however, while it be in many ways a microcosm of the season itself, Manheim Township would be the ones to finally find themselves on the winning ledger when it came to a tight Section One contest at their familiar confines.

And as should have become readily apparent almost right from the initial jump, finding a bit of separation generated between either McCaskey or Township would be next to impossible to try and locate. Granted, while the Streaks would race out of the chute en route to an early 7-2 advantage thanks to their senior duo found in Sebastian Henson and Caden Young respectively with the former knocking in a trifecta with the latter coming up with a take to the cup, the Tornado would promptly race back within reach following an traditional three-point authored by McCaskey senior wing, Aiden Burgess, as the guests had been able to successfully trim the gap down to the slimmest of margins, 8-7, with a hair under five minutes remaining in the opening stanza yet.

From there, McCaskey raced all the way back in front for their second lead of the young evening following a stick-back bucket inside chipped in by an impressive underclassman, De’Andre Jones, as the Tornado sophomore guard gave his squad a 9-8 lead before a banked-in triple by Burgess saw the McCaskey swell upwards to five, 16-11, with now inside of the three minutes in the game’s first period.

The trouble for Township was, McCaskey only continued to remain just as potent from beyond the arc.

In fact, following yet another Tornado trey dialed up in the first quarter courtesy of Burgess once more, McCaskey had somehow gone from trailing by five to suddenly leading by a dozen within the span of essentially six minutes of gameplay as Burgess’ second 3-ball made it a 25-13 McCaskey lead inside of the final 30 seconds before they would continue to hold serve at 23-16 once the first quarter buzzer eventually sounded.

Ironically, while this might have been a game in which they were on the road, it would’ve been easy to think that perhaps these two teams had switched uniforms beforehand considering how well the Tornado seemed to be shooting in a gym they only find themselves in once a year. With that in mind, seeing De’Andre Jones bury a 3-ball of his own to begin the second quarter proceedings, good for three more en route to a game-high 21-point effort by the end of the evening, kept the Tornado especially dangerous and quite possibly on the verge of running away and hiding with essentially three quarters still left to be played.

But not on Township’s watch. Not tonight.

Gradually, the Blue Streaks just kept chipping away at their current deficit by sticking with the gameplan. Of course, seeing McCaskey suddenly go cold from the field suddenly certainly didn’t hurt matters either. And the once the shooting prowess conversely found itself on the Streaks’ bench, it would result in a much-needed 3-ball sunk by 5’10 senior guard, Isaac Vorhis-Witmer, turning the tide back in Township’s favor even despite McCaskey holding serve at 27-21 with 6:25 left before half. From there, Township was able to get back within a penny at 29-28 in the aftermath of an Antonio Vazquez bucket inside before a Henson trifecta later allowed the Streaks to pull back even at 31-31 with 3:20 still to tick off the second quarter clock by that point. 

So, with Manheim Township already seeing an early lead go by the wayside inside of the opening half whereas McCaskey also witnessed the very same thing from their perspective –albeit by a much higher margin – it seemed fitting to see the lead change hands several times over the course of the final few minutes of the second quarter on Thursday night before eventually culminating in McCaskey heading into the halftime break with possession of the extremely slim 39-38 buffer.

In the third quarter however, that’s where Manheim Township made a strong push to try and take the game over.

To his credit, while he was shut out from scoring inside of the initial 16 minutes, Manheim Township’s Rocky Mack seemed no worse for the wear whatsoever once the second half rolled around as the Streaks’ 5’11 junior guard was able to not only tally his first points of the evening, but his first field goal of the contest would give Township the 46-44 lead with roughly 1:30 having gone by in the third quarter. Later, still playing with that same miniscule margin, a beautiful two-man game executed between Caden Young to Bennett Parmer inside resulted in a bucket a few minutes later, upping the Streaks’ lead to three, 51-48, with McCaskey prompted into burning a timeout with 3:57 left in the inning. And from there, Young would continue to stir the drink for the Streaks’ collective effort by coming up with an old-school three-point play to make it a 54-50 Township advantage almost instantaneously following the Tornado stoppage. On the night, Caden Young’s fingerprints on the game were next to impossible to ignore as the Township senior floor general did more than yeoman’s work in a variety of different avenues, not the least of which included a 19-point effort by the end of the match.

That said, with McCaskey largely found fighting for their playoff lives in this one, seeing the Tornado go into the foggy night without much more than whimper figured to be blasphemous at best. Sure enough, here they came right on cue.

If there was a primary catalyst that seemed to fuel McCaskey’s offense while besmirched with an untimely bout of cold shooting, it was most certainly the Tornado’s collective propensity to haul down offensive rebounds which they in turn largely capitalized on in big ways. Case in point, a kick-out to De’Andre Jones standing and waiting on the perimeter following a Tornado offensive board which resulted in a Jones’ trifecta to aid the McCaskey cause with a shade over two minutes left in the third before the guests eventually stormed all the way back in front to take the 57-55 lead with them into the final eight minutes on the heels of a pair of freebies knocked down at the charity stripe by junior guard, Eddie Bencosme, with just 10.8 seconds remaining in the quarter by that point to break the stalemate.

But as the final quarter would show, no team would be able to push the other off the ledge for good.

Sure, while McCaskey would find themselves on top at 61-57 within the span of the first two minutes following a pretty Jones to Kamryn Pugh layup in transition with the junior guard finishing the play off at the cup, a Caden Young three-point play on the Streaks’ ensuing trip down the floor sliced it back to one in extremely short order.

Yet if there was perhaps a hero for Manheim Township above all others by and large throughout the span of all 32 minutes found on Thursday, Bennett Parmer’s name should be right there at the top of the list in terms of the nominees.

While he may top the scales at all of 6’1, you’d never know it by how hard the wildly undersized “big” is forced to play at times down amongst the Redwoods even he himself happens to be more of a Japanese Maple by comparison. And true to form, despite not having the tallest of heights of which he can claim, the ticker found inside his chest couldn’t possibly be measured seeing how he played against McCaskey all game long.

Fittingly, in the truest example of sticktoitiveness, a Parmer bucket from point-blank range awarded the lead back to Township, 62-61, with now a shade over five minutes remaining. And while another Young drive to the cup would proceed to put the Streaks up by a 67-63 difference roughly two minutes later, a timely stick-back at the tin by Parmer once more made it a 70-67 Township lead with all of 73 seconds remaining as momentum was just starting to tilt back in McCaskey’s favor ever so slightly. And if you’re wondering as to just how valuable Bennett Parmer was to the collective Manheim Township effort, even if you were to put his litany of game-saving buckets down the final stretch off to the side for just a moment, his 20-point night overall, good for the Streaks’ team-best, was perhaps the best bit of evidence to show for it.

However, McCaskey wasn’t the least bit interested in simply allowing Manheim Township to ride home unimpeded from there on out.

And for that, the Red Tornado would quickly trim that Township cushion down to one, 70-69, with inside of one minute left to play in the aftermath of a De’Andre Jones bucket inside following a puzzling quick shot fired up by Township on their previous possession despite their current three-point lead.

So, with the game hanging in the balance and the opportunity ripe for the taking, the question left unanswered was to who would be the one to put their stamp on things. Well, if you have followed Manheim Township Basketball over the last few years, you probably already know the answer to this inquiry.

After exploding out to what was team-high scoring honors posted in the first half against McCaskey on this night with an 11-point showing, Sebastian Henson was largely held in check for most of the second half while working against the Tornado. But it’s hard to keep a multi-year senior starter down for the count, especially with his games remaining at home being next to nil. With that in mind, it seemed almost fitting that the Streaks’ 6’2 wing stroll down the lane relatively unscathed as Henson’s late-game heroics in the form of a bucket inside off a full head of steam made it a 72-69 Township lead with all of 20 seconds left.

Then, after advancing the ball into the front court, McCaskey called timeout to try and run one final play, or perhaps extend the game even longer by finding a quick two instead. However, the guests opted for the first option of those choices before getting what they wanted in the form of an elevator screen up high that was met with resistance in the form of Henson running the shooter off his original spot before then getting a hand up to contest the would-be tying shot anyhow as the McCaskey 3-ball would careen off the rim before landing in the mitts of Parmer with 0.7 seconds left where Parmer would add one final free throw to evening while also finishing things off for good as Manheim Township was able to come away not just with a 73-69 final triumph against an extremely game McCaskey bunch, but a win that almost certainly felt all the more sweeter factoring in the trials and tribulations that the Blue Streaks have gone through at various points throughout this season’s overall journey.

“I think that game was a little bit of our season to a T,” Manheim Township head coach Matt Johns said after seeing his team prevail and come out the far more enjoyable side of one of these nip-and-tuck outings. “We’ve just struggled to play four quarters. Sometimes we play the first three really, really well and not the fourth. The last two nights, Tuesday and tonight, we didn’t play well at all in the first quarter,” he would mention. “Against Hempfield, we were down 20-9 after the first quarter. Tonight, we were down 23-16. I was thinking, ‘Man, it can’t get much worse than Tuesday when we gave up 20 points.’ I was wrong. We then gave up 23. But even with that, what I was most proud of on both nights was that we just kept grinding,” Johns said with an obvious level of gratitude in his team’s ability to weather those storms. “In both games, it could’ve gone either way. On Tuesday, it went against us, and we didn’t make the plays we needed to. Tonight, we made enough plays at the end that we were able to take that game back and we haven’t done that in a while. We’ve had games where we’ve gotten out hot, had to hold on at the end, and then some other games where we’ve blown some people out. We just haven’t had a lot of games where we were right on the verge of winning and losing and we just went out and took it.”

But as anyone will tell you, none of that is at all possible if you wilt and crumble whenever adversity strikes. In that regard, Johns needn’t worry about the type of moxie this 2023-24 crew possesses when it comes to their shared mental fortitude.

“Our guys are absolute competitors,” said the Streaks’ coach. “Like, winning doesn’t always happen just because you automatically get older. At times, I think we’ve struggled to learn how to win, but we never struggled with competing. We never struggled with the desire to win,” Johns shared. “Sometimes maybe we don’t make the read that I like, but I don’t ever feel like as a team at any point, regardless of what our record is or what game it is, that anyone decides, ‘I am more important than the team.’ At halftime against Hempfield, it could’ve really gone south. Instead, (his players) committed to what we had asked them to do in the first half. It didn’t happen in the first half, but there’s nothing magical that a coach says at halftime. Usually, your plan is the right plan, it’s just a matter of whether your kids buy into that plan and can then execute that plan and then make a few adjustments to what the other team is doing that you didn’t expect,” he would add.

And among those priorities at the top of the Blue Streaks’ whiteboard before they took to the floor against McCaskey for a gameplan? Almost certainly winning the rebounding war. 

“You have to rebound the ball,” Johns would say most specifically in terms of what he knew was arguably the most paramount issue in going up against McCaskey. “If there’s one consistent that comes with playing McCaskey over the years, it’s that you can’t give up transition points and you have to rebound the ball. It doesn’t matter how big or how small they are, they are always going to come flying in, tipping balls all over the place. When (McCaskey) is big, you have to rebound the ball. When (McCaskey) is small, they’re shooting 3s and I think rebounding there is just as hard because the ball flies all over the place. So yeah, rebounding was a real point of emphasis yesterday. I didn’t feel like (rebounding) was beating us per se in the first half, but it wasn’t the strength that it needed to be. I thought it became more of a strength of ours in the second half. In the second half, we also committed to offensive rebounding a lot more.”

While it may have been a team effort and understandably so, the one really sticking his nose in there to either extend or secure extra possessions for the Streaks? None other than Bennett Parmer.

“He’s the ultimate competitor. He always gets banged up,” Johns highlighted of his senior largely asked to play well outside of his natural position this year. “Whether it was Tuesday night where we were really struggling to guard Troyer at Hempfield and (Parmer) said at halftime, ‘I want Troyer.’ He did a great job on him in the second half. Tonight, he was right when he said, ‘They can’t guard me inside. If I’m not going to get the ball, I’m going to go after the ball.’ There were times tonight where we fed him and he had two, three shots before he finished. Then there were times where someone else takes a good shot, it’s a miss, and he’s going after it,” he continued of Parmer. “The epitome of his game was tonight with under a minute to go, he winds up in the fifth row of the bleachers chasing a loose ball and almost took out our superintendent. At the end of the game, he said, ‘I want (De’Andre Jones). I can stay in front of him.’ He did. He forced the ball 75-feet away from the basket with only 14 seconds to go. He bought us four seconds of defense right there and then did a good enough job of staying down that (Jones) had to give the ball up to someone else. I don’t know how noticeable it was, but Seb Henson also did a great job on that last play of challenging the initial elevator-shot and then still got his hand in there to make sure it wasn’t an easy 3.”

Again though, Thursday night’s roller coaster game just as easily could’ve rightly served as a single thread of evidence as to how topsy-turvy Section One has been this season. With that in mind, how does a coach who has been through his fair share of battles over the years make sense of everything both in close and from afar?

“The closest that I remember wasn’t that long ago. It was probably the year we won leagues (2018-19),” Johns said. “We even needed a little bit of help to get the section title that year. We were right up there. Hempfield was right up there. Cedar Crest was right up there. Then Penn Manor is going and knocking off Cedar Crest and McCaskey was good too. You had five teams on any given night that were capable of beating each other,” he would add of that year in remembrance.

“I think you have a lot of really good teams, no slight to any of us, but I’m not sure if we have a great team,” Johns would mention about this year about Section One specifically. “I think we were probably one more ‘big’ big away from being a really, really good team. We fought our tails off against Cedar Crest, but we were still giving up a lot of rebounds and we had to really work. We give up a lot of size to Hempfield too. We have some advantages at times with our ball-handling, but we just really have to work for everything we get. Hempfield’s length creates problems. Cedar Crest has the deepest team of all of us and they take advantage of that depth. But also, when they have a 6’6 and a 6’7 back there, that makes up for a lot of mistakes that may come out on the perimeter.”

And on this night, while they yet again had to work for everything just as they have all season long up until this point, Manheim Township was able to finally revel in the spoils of victory while on their home soil when it came to outlasting a fellow Section One team. In short, while they may be overshadowed –whether physically or otherwise – they could never be counted out or underestimated. For that will largely figure to be overarching narrative to describe the 2023-24 Manheim Township Blue Streaks in due time.

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