City of Basketball Love

Michael Bullock (@thebullp_n)
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NEFFSVILLE — With a piece of twine lodged behind one of his ears as some gold-plated hardware dangled from his weary shoulders, Isaac Beers happily bounced among friends and family members — all without leaving Manheim Twp. High School’s spacious Arena floor.

Satisfied? Absolutely.

Beers’ satisfaction was extremely visible, especially since the Lampeter-Strasburg senior and teammates he’s known since he can remember accomplished something no other Pioneers basketball group had managed until Friday night — capture an elusive Lancaster-Lebanon League title.

What made Friday’s post-game celebration even better for Beers and his younger brother, Seth, was they’d spent the previous school year at Lancaster Mennonite before opting to return to L-S.

“It feels good,” Beers said.

Well, Isaac Beers certainly made his presence known throughout the 32-minute championship exercise, as the 6-2 senior pocketed 22 points, snared nine rebounds and dished out a pair of assists as L-S dethroned defending champion Lancaster Catholic by a 50-40 count.

Ryan Smith, the 6-10 East Stroudsburg recruit Beers has known since they attended Kindergarten together, backed his buddy by scoring 12 points, grabbing nine boards and blocking five shots as L-S (23-2) shrugged off a slow start before gathering all sorts of needed steam.

“It’s an honor to be here and play a team like Lancaster Catholic,” said second-year L-S coach Ed Berryman, who piloted the Pioneers to a 17-12 record and an eighth-place finish in last season’s District 3 Class 5A tournament. L-S opened states by losing to Abington Heights.

“These kids are smart kids and we talked at the beginning of the year, and this was one of our goals. Our goal was to win the Section (Section 2) and our goal was to win the league championship. We have a banner with nothing under league champs and now we’re going to put 2018 in there.”

R.J. Van Tash racked up 16 points and David Kamwanga added 13 for Lancaster Catholic (22-3), which lugged a 12-game winning streak into Friday’s title game. Despite the setback, Joe Klazas’ balanced Crusaders will open defense of their District 3 Class 4A title next week at home.

Yet while Kamwanga’s early burst pushed Catholic in front quickly — the 6-6 sophomore rang up six points and dealt one assist as the Crusaders bolted to an 8-3 advantage — L-S simply ramped up its work rate at the defensive end of the floor and made things extremely difficult.

“Our main plan was just to play solid defense,” Beers admitted. “Stop penetration. Stop [Johnny] Besecker from shooting. We did pretty well with that. When we stopped their penetration was when we got stops on defense. We also rebounded pretty well. That’s when we got stops, too.”

And with Catholic stymied somewhat, Beers and Smith combined for 18 first-half points as L-S opened a 28-17 halftime lead that had the L-S student section at a full boil. Beers was 4-for-4 from the floor, canning a pair of treys to go with a stickback and a late finish at the rim.

Smith, despite having multiple defenders hanging on him every time the ball came his way, displayed his shooting range by burying two face-up treys in the flow of the offense.

“We knew Catholic was going to make a run at us in the second half,” Beers said. “They did make a run at us, but we knew we just had to play tough, solid defense and rebound the way we did in the first half and not break down. We were able to hold them down until the end of the game.”

Even though L-S switched into a zone look exclusively that clogged up driving lanes and enabled the Pioneers to contest perimeter looks — L-S also flashed a box-and-one that had Seth Beers chasing Johnny Besecker, Catholic’s top scorer — the Pioneers were able to extend their lead to 14 points (38-24) before the Crusaders rattled off a 7-0 salvo to close the third.

Isaac Beers added six points in the third quarter, two on a finish at the rim, two more on a stickback and the final two on a jumper set up by Jordan Sweger’s inbound pass.

The Crusaders were able to get within six points (46-40) with just over a minute to play on Van Tash’s jump shot, but that was it as Patrick Holmes and Beers each knocked down two freebies.

“We have a lot of defenses that we can run,” Beers said. “We just want to see what works, so we can use that to our advantage.”

Several moments later, with the clock winding down and Beers handling the ball, he took a second to slap five with Sweger near the midcourt stripe. Soon, the ball was in the air as L-S began to celebrate.

“It was great,” Beers admitted. “We knew going into this game that it had to be a win for us. We just told each other that we’re not going to let us lose this game. We were going to play as hard as we could and leave it all out on the floor. If that wasn’t good enough, then that was fine.

“We gave it all we had and that was good enough for us.”

Beers had plenty of chances to celebrate a season ago at Mennonite, which led eventual champion Neumann-Goretti at halftime of their state quarterfinal before falling. The Blazers also finished second in the District 3 Class 3A tournament, falling to Trinity by a 75-72 score.

Yet despite Mennonite’s numerous successes, Beers yearned to return to L-S so he could play with the guys he’s grown up with. What he brings is a cool, on-court demeanor and subtle leadership skills that enabled him to fit right back in with the Pioneers as if he’d never left.

“He’s calm. He’s collected,” said Berryman, whose Pioneers opened the regular season with a 53-41 victory over Lancaster Catholic at home. “He doesn’t get frustrated, but he’s a leader also. In the huddle he’s like, ‘We’ve got to play better defense and let’s go.’ I appreciate having him.

“He’s a fantastic player.”

Ironically, L-S opened the L-L tournament on Monday night at home by besting Mennonite 70-60. What followed two nights later was a 47-45 conquest of Section 1 champion Hempfield, setting up Friday night’s skirmish with Lancaster Catholic, the Section 3 champs.

Beers also is the son of a former coach — his father, Pete, was the coach at Lancaster Bible College, where he now serves as the school’s athletic director — so he’s aware of everything around him.

The bottom line, however, is the kid can play and he’s a wonderful complement to Smith — even though Friday night Smith was the wonderful complement to the remarkably productive Beers.

“We try to get it into Ryan, because we know most teams are going to double down,” Beers said. “So as soon as we got it into Ryan, they turned their heads and that’s when Ryan kicked it out to us.

“We were able to knock down some shots.”

Beers even had a post-game visit from his future coach (Zach Filzen) at Lancaster Bible — his older brother, Luke, is a sophomore at LBC — as the championship trophy was passed from teammate to teammate and groups of Pioneers posed on the Township floor for keepsake photos.

“It means a lot to us,” Beers admitted.

Yet while L-S celebrated Friday night, they’ll be forced back into action quickly as the top-seeded Pioneers will open the District 3 Class 5A tournament at home Monday night against a Northern York side they’ve already bested (68-52) during a holiday tournament at Middletown.

Regardless of what’s immediately in front of the Pioneers, Beers wasn’t going to pass up a chance to celebrate with friends and teammates he’s known for so long.

“I knew he’d fit right back in, because they’re his buddies,” Berryman said.

Quite simply, it was good to be home again.

“I came back to be with my friends,” Beers added. “I went to Kindergarten with Ryan.

“I just had to be back with them for my senior year.”