Lancaster Mennonite 71 St. Johns Neumann 43: wrap

Written by: Dell Jackson on March 9, 2024

Lancaster Mennonite 71 Neumann 43
2A Boys PIAA First round
March 9, 2024

Lancaster Mennonite (3-1) faced Neumann (4-2) last year in the first round last season. This season both teams had a new cast. It wasn’t a rematch.

Coach Jeff Hartenstine stated, “Both teams have different rosters this year. Neumann had some players that played last year with different numbers..They were solid…They had a big (Tyrick Moy, 6’2” senior, 20 rebounds and 22 points), who ate us alive…didn’t matter what we did with him.”

Mennonite came out in its traditional man-man defense. St. John’s Neumann countered with a variety of zones, mixed in with man. Tyrick Moy scored on a follow for Neumann to tie the score at 2 all early in the first – that was the last time the Golden Knights would either tie or take a lead. LMHS used its high-low offense vs. the 2-3 zone of Neuman (inside hoops by Billy Rothwein, 6’2” sophomore and Chase Hurst) gave the Blazers an 8-3 lead with 4:38 left in the quarter. Enter Mr. Cody Fisher. Fisher, 6’2” sophomore, canned three 3-balls in each of LMHS’ next possessions. Yet another triple by Fisher extended the LMHS lead to 24- 10 late in the first. The quarter ended at 24-12: Mennonite.

St Johns started controlling the boards in the second period. The Golden Knights cut the lead down to 10 points at different times in the second, but they couldn’t keep Mennonite from scoring on the Blazers offensive end. Caleb Binkley, 6’5″ senior, came off the Blazer’s bench to provide some rebounding and scoring punch (back-to-back buckets – the last on a sweet assist by Brady Grau). Grau would score the last bucket of the half on a nice baseline drive. 39-26 at the break- Mennonite.

Lancaster Mennonite hit the boards in the third (15-6). Some interesting occurrences in the third.

1) Billy Rothwein was called for his 4th foul. Not a big problem as LMHS continued to pound the glass.

2) Coach Jeff Hartenstine was called for a technical at the 4:28 mark. He was discussing a play where he tried to call a timeout and was not granted it by the official. The play resulted in a Neumann uncontested layup.

It seemed that the only offense that St. Johns could muster was put backs and fouls shots by Moy. The Blazers stretched their lead to 56-35 with Chase Hurst netting 11 in the period.

The Blazers did hit the up-by-30 mark with 3:25 left in the game. Mennonite cleared its bench soon there after as the Blazers coasted home with a big “W”.

Unofficial Stats
Rebounds: St Johns 28, LMHS 26
Turnovers: St. Johns 16, LMHS 14
Blocks: St. Johns 1, LMHS 3

Points
LMHS: Cody Fisher 24 (6 threes) Chase Hurst 15
St Johns: Tyrick Moy 22, Messiah Baldwin 14

Quotables…Coach Jeff Hartenstine…” Our seniors wanted to keep on playing…we are going on a bus this week…Chase does a lot of little things for us that doesn’t show up in the box score…Cody was ill this week, so we weren’t sure what we would get from him. ”

Chase Hurst…”It was a good environment, and I thought that helped us throughout the game…I had to be more creative in the second half than I was in the first.”

Next up..
Lancaster Mennonite will play Wed. at a time and site TBD.
St. Johns finishes their season at 14-12.