New Year, Same Ol’ Barons. Manheim Central Completes Another Second Half Rally As Barons Charge Past Stern Garden Spot Challenge To Remain Unbeaten
Written by: Andy Herr on January 3, 2024
While the first couple of days following the start of a new year are most often reserved for making resolutions and that of the like, please don’t take issue with neither Garden Spot or Manheim Central boys’ basketball if they happened to enter 2024 with the same exact intentions as they had ended 2023 on.
For the Garden Spot Spartans, it’s the dawn of a new day in New Holland. Well, sort of. You see, while he is technically a new coach found on the bench, he is not only quite familiar with Spartans’ fans exclusively, but with Lancaster-Lebanon League fans alike as former Spartans’ star, Curtis Waltman, makes his triumphant return back to his alma mater to steer the program he once scored a tick under 2,700 career points for starting this season. Pretty remarkable too when you consider that Waltman has already served in a head coaching capacity inside the conference before, albeit in an entirely different avenue seeing as how he was in charge of the Pequea Valley football program back in the late 2000’s that helped players like Sean Persch reach All-State status during their playing careers with the Braves. Suffice to say though, if Waltman can return his former program back to the same levels it once enjoyed while he and his fellow cast members of the “Blonde Bombers” were making scoreboards explode with point totals near the turn of the century a shade over 20 years ago now, big things are likely to be store for a Spartans’ program eager to make a return back to the state tournament found not all that long ago.
And to this point, it seems as if the Garden Spot brass have gotten a good return on investment thus far you’d have to say.
Sure, while there was the initial sputter out of the chute that included a 1-4 start to the campaign, Spot has retaliated back quite nicely in the form of winning four in a row since then, including taking their own holiday tournament this past week following victories over Hanover and Cocalico respectively, before taking their show on the road on Tuesday night to tangle with arguably the top team who may just rule to roost of Section Two. Again.
In Manheim Central’s case, there wasn’t all much to scoff at throughout the month of December. Sure, there’s always going to be places of which to tie up loose ends and the like, but going undefeated, surging to the front of the line in the District 3-5A power points, and making an appearance in some publications Top 5 state rankings isn’t a bad place to start. That said, starting off January with a loss on your home floor certainly isn’t the preferred method of attack if you plan on taking back the division this winter with the full intention of making it back to Manheim Township for what would be the second consecutive year for the league finals should you be fortunate enough to make it that far.
With that in mind, in an early week game following the holiday break that featured a pair of teams coming in off tournament titles with a combined dozen wins found between them, Tuesday night at Doe Run Elementary figured to be a fun matchup inside the L-L Section Two standings. Yet while “fun” may not have exactly been the word the Barons would use to describe it, they’ll surely take it all the same.
As one may figure between two squads that came in playing nothing but white-hot basketball, the lead was likely to exchange hands quite often in the early going.
Case in point, while Garden Spot’s talented 6’1 junior guard, Jace Conrad, was able to give his side a 3-2 lead inside of the first minute, Manheim Central would counter back with a quick 8-3 rebuttal before a Conrad triple later sliced the Barons’ somewhat early, sizable lead down to a much more modest 10-8 difference with 4:30 still showing on the first quarter clock.
That said, while Garden Spot may have been within arm’s reach at the time, they finally vaulted back in front inside of the latter stages of the opening frame.
For that, the Spartans leaned on the efforts of their tough southpaw guard, Owen Usner, as the 5’9 junior guard proceeded to rip off his own personal rally to put Spot back in front at 13-12 following a smooth pullup jumper.
And while Central would counter that with a timely Aaron Enterline take to the cup which made it a 16-15 Barons’ count, a trifecta by Usner, Cooper Usner this time around, allowed Garden Spot to take the fruits of an 18-16 lead with them into the second stanza thanks to the triple knocked down by the 5’9 sophomore sniper.
Yet here again inside of the second quarter, the margin of separation between these two seemed slim and nil.
Sure, while a pullup J sunk by Chase Book put the Barons back in front at 20-18 inside of the first minute of the period, another Garden Spot triple, this one courtesy of 6’0 senior Lance Binkley, suddenly made it a 27-23 Spartans’ cushion with the Barons prompted into burning a timeout to regroup with 3:31 left before the half at that point.
And if the visitors weren’t doing enough damage down on the offensive side of the floor, they had no issues whatsoever in sticking their noses into danger down on the defensive end. In that regard, hang a star next to Bryce Weaver’s name as the 6’5 senior big man fearlessly and selflessly took a charge for his team with all the momentum in the world seemingly sitting on the Garden Spot bench at the time.
Try as they might though to overtake Spot inside of the final few minutes of the opening half –such as the case in the aftermath of another Enterline whirling dervish at the cup which made it a 27-25 Spartans’ lead with a minute left to go – Manheim Central would find their unblemished record in more than just a little bit of danger at the halftime recess seeing as how Garden Spot owned the 29-25 advantage.
Simply put, Garden Spot had to figure that they’d see an entirely different Barons’ squad as opposed to the one who had just gone into the dressing room. And while that may have been true, the Spartans just kept refusing to flinch.
In fact, even with the teams still trading buckets back and forth with one another inside the early minutes of the third frame, Spot was still in possession of a four-point lead at 31-27 at 5:30 left following a tough bucket inside tallied by way of 6’4 junior ace of a piece inside, Ryder Hertzler, as Hertzler would add two points onto his eventual team-high 14-point outing by the time the night was over with.
However, while Manheim Central’s leading scorer on the night, Aaron Enterline, would continue pressing the issue in his own right following yet another trademark take the cup to add two more onto his eventual 16-point bucketing, a sorely needed triple on the Spartans’ ensuing offensive trip via Owen Usner upped the Spot back to a half dozen, 37-31, with inside of two minutes left to tick off the third by that juncture.
Undeterred however, Manheim Central as an entire team just kept trying to find the answer this remarkably tough Garden Spot riddle all night long.
For a moment, it seemed as if they had finally done so once Jackson Tracy rifled in a buttery smooth trifecta after a pump fake which caused the defender to quite literally fly past him, as the 5’9 senior pitbull of a point guard made it a 38-38 stalemate before a late Spartan deuce allowed the guests to head into the final eight with the slim 40-38 lead.
Fittingly though, for an initial 24 minutes that featured barbs being traded back and forth between what seemed to be nothing if not two evenly matched outfits, the final quarter on Tuesday came packed with all the trimmings of that and then some as well.
For that evidence, look no further than another Spot bucket inside at point-blank range, this one courtesy of AJ Hurst, making it a 42-38 Spot lead on the heels of the Spartans’ first offensive trip down the floor. Then, just when it may have appeared as if Garden Spot would be able to put the Barons to bed once and for all, they, namely Chase Book that is, came roaring back as the talented 6’1 sophomore stalwart ripped of his own personal 5-0 spurt to later make it a 45-42 Central lead in relatively short order, prompting Garden Spot to burn a timeout to regroup with 5:53 left to play.
Yet back and forth they continued to jab.
In fact, in the aftermath of that aforementioned Garden Spot timeout following Chase Book’s latest exploits against them, a reverse finish at the cup via Hurst yet again, good for two more en route to his eight points tallied on the evening, got the Spartans back within one instantaneously.
Regardless, Aaron Enterline continued to be his usual bullying self, particularly with the game there for the taking.
Without much in the way of debate, having the explosive senior forward have the rock in his hands in isolation up high is almost surely an automatic recipe for a bucket if help isn’t forthcoming. Sure enough, that’s exactly what took place with four minutes to go as an Enterline drug his defender to the tin with him before finishing one-on-one with his right, upping Central’s cushion back to three at 49-46.
But as Manheim Central was already plenty aware of, getting rid of Garden Spot was a chore far easier said than actually done.
Case in point, even when it looked as if the Barons’ mixing and matching of 1-3-1, man-to-man, essentially a litany of different defensive schemes thrown against the Spartans had finally cured them of their Garden Spot ills, consistent and untimely breakdowns defensively only kept Spot within shouting distance all the way down to the final gun.
For this latest bit, Jace Conrad proceeded to get fouled at the cup before the incredibly talented junior guard with major upside proceeded to toe the line and go 2-2 in the process following the hack, knotting things up at 50-all with 1:38 left to go.
So, with 98 seconds left, what would the Barons do? Certainly, without a shot clock factoring into the equation, holding the ball the entire time seemed to be an option left on the table. And for quite a while that’s exactly what it seemed as if Manheim Central head coach Charlie Fisher’s intentions clearly were. Until they weren’t.
With the Barons seemingly holding the ball before making a go of it before the final 10 seconds give or take one would’ve imagined, the ball worked its way around the perimeter before finding the mitts of Mason Rodgers. Then, almost inexplicitly in a manner that almost caught everyone off guard, Rodgers proceeded to rise and fire from beyond the arc with a minute still left on the clock as the Barons’ 6’1 junior’s shot seemed to hit every bit of the rim before the pill finally made its way through the net, vaulting Central to the lead, 53-50, with Garden Spot still well within reach despite Rodgers’ haymaker levied against them.
Ironically though, while Waltman calling a timeout may have been with the full intention of drawing up a perfect play to get a crack at either tying the game or simply extending the game with a quick two, Garden Spot would receive far more than perhaps they too had planned on.
Needless to say, seeing the Spartans haul down three successive rebounds following missed triples on this ensuing Garden Spot trip kept the Barons’ contingent with hearts in their throats amid the Spartans’ lengthy final possession. Finally, despite doing far more than simply tempting the basketball gods and fate in general by giving up three offensive rebounds with the game on the line, an unfortunate miss from Garden Spot’s perspective ended with Enterline rising high above the fray before snatching the defensive board, giving the Barons the ball back with the three-point lead with just nine seconds left following a wild and frantic scene.
Even still, with the length of the floor left to go, Manheim Central still wasn’t exactly out of dodge quite yet.
And it certainly didn’t seem that way before the Barons narrowly avoided a five-count while trying to inbound the ensuing possession following Enterline’s board. Fortunately, if you consider yourself of the Manheim Central rooting variety, not only would the hosts avoid giving the ball right back in untimely fashion, but it would actually work in their benefit seeing as how the long pass resulted in a tipped ball from Garden Spot, advancing the ball all the way down to the other end of the floor in Central’s favor. Then, after finally getting this one thrown in with much simpler fashion by comparison, Aaron Enterline was forced to toe the line with 5.1 remaining with his team nursing the 53-50 lead.
But there would be no need for nursing once Enterline was finished with it as his 2-2 trip finally put this one out of reach and Charlie Fisher’s verbal “Yes!” that came in sync with the final buzzer seemed apropos as Manheim Central was able to remain atop all the local standings they could possibly ask for, albeit not without a very game effort put forth from a Garden Spot crew that proved without a shadow of a doubt that they will be a problem the rest of the way this season, especially given how they had just made the Barons escape their grasp with a 55-50 final victory on Central’s homecourt.
Afterwards, perhaps after taking more than a few minutes to try and get his relative heartrate down on the heels of such a pulse-pounding triumph, Charlie Fisher emerged from a victorious locker room nonetheless thankful that his group was able to prevail victorious on this night.
“I thought we were very effective offensively, but I just felt like this was the first game we sort of just coasted on defense at times,” the Barons’ head coach would candidly admit. “Give (Garden Spot) credit though. They got a ton of offensive rebounds and that’s not like us. We are normally the aggressor and today we weren’t. Mason Rodgers hits that three for us, but (Garden Spot) comes down and gets three good looks at it. I thought they did a really nice job tonight,” he continued of the Spartans’ final trip that seem part in parcel with the overall night at large.
Speaking of that Rodgers’ trey which proved itself to be the game-winner, perhaps it wasn’t necessarily a case of firing off a shot too early after all.
“It was sort of one of those things where at some point I was going to tell us to pull out, but I really thought we looked confident all night on offense,” said Fisher. “I thought we settled at times, got good shots when we could have had some great ones, but I thought we looked confident. At the end there, until we hit like a panic, I was fine with being in the flow, and it didn’t seem like anyone was forcing. (Rodgers) saw it, felt it, and I’m for it,” Fisher said in truth while perhaps equal parts dry humor. “When he shot it, there was still enough time where you could make something work at the other end and make the other team work offensively. If we shoot it with like 35 seconds, then you might have a problem on your hands.”
A problem you say? Well, while Fisher may have been talking about a possible late-game scenario, he could’ve easily been talking about Garden Spot in general quite frankly.
“I thought (Waltman) did a great job of being patient when they needed to be,” Fisher acknowledged of his coaching counterpart on this night. “That’s sort of problem playing a team like Garden Spot. If you let them get the lead early, that sort of takes away what you want to do. It really felt like this was one of those one possession at a time type games. I thought we gambled too much and got a little antsy and then that took us away,” he remarked. “I thought for the most part, we made the right plays, we just gave up too many offensive rebounds and just like fell asleep. That normally doesn’t happen.”
Regardless though, while it may not have been exactly been a masterpiece worthy of being placed next to Mona Lisa in the Manheim Central art room or anything, you can never besmirch wins when you are fortunate enough to collect them. Charlie Fisher is certainly well cognizant of that.
“It just feels like we’re losing at halftime of every game,” Fisher said with a laugh of almost wonderment after being asked a more wide-range assessment type question. “I mean, we’re battle-tested, but I’d like to come out and be a little more assertive to start. It’s one of those things where we cleaned some stuff up in practice, but I again thought offensively we were very effective, and I was very happy with that.”
If nothing else, whether it be by virtue of a highly efficient offensive performance or simply moving your team’s record out to a 9-0 overall clip, there are a bevy of reasons to be joyous right now in Manheim.
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