Cumberland Valley 52 Hershey 41: Wrap by David Bray Jn.
Written by: Dell Jackson on February 17, 2024
Battle for the Mid-Penn Championship
Cumberland Valley 52 Hershey 41
By: David Bray Jr
What. A. Battle. The Mid-Penn Championship was held in Central Dauphin High School tonight and what a game it was. Hershey Trojans held a 20-2 record going into the game after defeating Greencastle-Antrim in the semi-final round on Wednesday while Cumberland Valley was coming off a victory against Trinity after holding Owen Schlager to only 5 points and holding a 20-3 record. To begin the game, it seemed that it was going to be a very electric game as the lower level stands were being heavily contested after the Mid-Penn Girls Final had concluded.
With the beginning tip, Isaiah Danner won the jump and tipped it to Cameron Sweeney to begin the offense. Logan Richards got off to a hot start scoring 5 of Hershey’s first 7 points. However, Cumberland Valley started off strong, scoring 16 points in the first quarter and retaining 0 fouls after the first 8 minutes of the game. Scoring for Cumberland Valley remained very spread out with a few threes and free throws pushing them ahead. The second quarter began and this quarter is the reason that the crowd became the way it was the whole game. To start, Cumberland Valley ended up in significant foul trouble with 9 fouls in the quarter. Hershey ended the quarter with only 2 fouls and the large Cumberland Valley following was not happy to say the least. Logan Richards continued to play a key role in Hershey’s scoring, totalling 11 of their 19 points. Cumberland Valley’s lead scorer began to come alive as Nolan Buzalka had 11 points at the end of the half. Momentum started to shift a little in this quarter as foul trouble began to become an issue with Creston Austin picking up a few, leaving him on the bench for the majority of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th.
In the second half, Cumberland Valley came out hot with an 6-2 run to begin the 3rd and maintained most of the possession, but the Hershey defense began to shut them down leaving the Eagles to only have 8 points in the third. Cameron Sweeney, despite dealing with 3 fouls in the third quarter, began to score for the Trojans pushing them to win the quarter. The fouls were less of an issue this quarter, however the crowd would not give the referees any slack as the yelling continued on any heavily contested shot from both teams. But, of course this is the championship so this is what is expected: extremely competitive basketball. Alex Murray woke up the Hershey offense in the third and fourth, splashing 3 contested three-pointers and giving Hershey some momentum and dropping the lead to 8 at a point. Cumberland Valley had a shooting threat of their own with JJ Lebo who contributed 13 points for the Eagles in the game. Hershey continued to crawl back, but they unfortunately ran out of time as Cumberland Valley took the Mid-Penn Championship after taking a huge chunk of time off the clock by some good ball movement.
Nolan Buzalka led scoring for Cumberland Valley with a quiet 17 points, followed by JJ Lebo with 13 points, and Creston Austin with 9 points after clutch free throws for the team in the final minutes of the game. Hershey had a three way tie for the points leader with Cameron Sweeney, Logan Richards, and Alex Murray all contributing 11 points. A very athletic Cumberland Valley team held Hershey’s points leader, Isaiah Danner to only 3 points, by securing the post with double teams and traps. Despite Buzalka’s scoring, Hershey forced many turnovers with their press and caused many scoring opportunities on their fast break offense. Although Hershey did lose a tight one, they still have a first round bye for the Section 3 5A playoffs, will face either Warwick or Red Land in the semi-finals of the playoffs, and have an automatic trip to the state tournament. Cumberland Valley walks away with a piece of hardware for the trophy cabinet and is the 2 seed for the 6A tournament for Section 3. Cumberland Valley will face the winner of the 7 and 10 seed match-up between Lancaster-Lebanon Tournament champion, Cedar Crest and Wilson. Cumberland Valley also clinches a berth into the state PIAA championships. On the bright side, we get to see 2 great teams with competitive tournament basketball in the coming week.
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