Sometimes, it’s not the lessons we want to learn, but rather the ones that we must learn that make all the difference. For the Manheim Township Blue Streaks, these past seven days were going to show a whole lot about them coming out the other side from what transpired last Friday night.
For as long as anyone can readily recall, the worst kept secret in Lancaster-Lebanon football circles has been that the keys of ownership to Section One reside in either West Lawn or Neffsville on a perennial basis, save for one blip on the radar where Hempfield inserted themselves into that mix. To be sure, everyone knows the rules of engagement when it comes to the division that houses all the proverbial “big boys” in this conference. You want to win a section championship? You’re absolutely, positively going to have to either go through Wilson or Manheim Township in order to get there. Fittingly, because these two have obviously been the two juggernauts, their annual tussle was routinely played on Week 10, the final week of the regular season, meaning that the eventual Section One championship game truly was the Section One championship game.
This year though, thanks to the new two-year cycle of new enrollment numbers and the like, including a mandated crossover game between an L-L team and a SCAC team – formally known as the York-Adams League – the Manheim Township and Wilson affair had suddenly jumped all the way up on the slate to Week 4 of the season. In a sense, instead of waiting for what has seemed to always be the inevitable, seeing these two kick off league play last week at the bare minimum provided a roadmap for what the remainder of the section championship race would look like from here on out.
And unfortunately for Manheim Township, that was a bell that tolled loud and clear.
To sum it up, it was the first time in nearly a decade where the Blue Streaks entered a locker room and then exited a locker room with the same amount of points as when the game began – 0.
Suffice to say, when a highly anticipated game doesn’t go in your favor, much less one that ends in shutout fashion, it can sometimes be a precarious position where one loss can quickly balloon into two. Add in the fact that the Cedar Crest Falcons were the next team on the docket, one of the early season darlings hailing from the L-L League that came onto Township’s campus on Friday while still unblemished at 4-0, with deafening rumblings that they themselves could be one of the “others” in Section One that could rise up and take the throne from either Wilson or Manheim Township this season considering the litany of talent and experience littered all throughout the blue and gray’s roster.
But if you know this story well enough, expecting the Blue Streaks to still be all up in their feelings and down on their luck following that aforementioned 17-0 loss to Wilson last Friday just wasn’t something that figured to happen. A hard lesson to learn, yes, but one that Township passed with flying colors while in the process of grabbing the program’s 500thwin to boot against a game Cedar Crest crew.
In a word, it was efficient.
And uber efficiency certainly helps when Seth Hensinger bursts through the line and ends up blocking a punt, a feat which the Manheim Township senior defensive back achieved from his rush man position on special teams, allowing the Streaks’ starting offensive unit to set up shop at the Falcons’ 18-yard their first time with the pill on Friday night.
Granted, while this initial MT series actually ended up going backwards, thanks in no small part to a sack tallied by Cedar Crest senior linebacker, Garret Starry, a 40-yard field goal booted through the pipes by way of Township’s Rowan Crispeno nonetheless awarded the hosts the 3-0 advantage all of 4:59 into the contest.
Then, after a prompt Cedar Crest three-and-out following the Crispeno field goal, the other efficient element of Township’s game, the complementary phase, began to rear its head against the Falcons.
Here, after beginning the drive squarely at the midfield stripe following the tidy handiwork complied by their defense, the Streaks’ offense began to put it in gear.
Among the highlights, a 14-yard slip screen to Aiden Zulick to move the sticks on 3rd & 6 which then put the ball on the Cedar Crest 32-yard line. From there, after a 7-yard run by PJ Myers and a reception to Chase Fletcher which moved the proceedings down to the Crest 2-yard line, the triumvirate of Township juniors had done the necessary legwork in setting up what felt like an inevitable touchdown.
For the honors, it would remain with the junior class as Myers promptly barreled his way in from 2 yards out for said score, making it a 10-0 Township cushion following the Crispeno PAT, which is precisely where things remained after the final 2:23 drained off the first quarter clock.
But the handshake meme shared between the Township offensive and defensive sides of the ball only continued once inside the second stanza, much to the chagrin of the visitors who had traveled south from Lebanon.
After yet another Crest three-and-out, the Falcons’ second in as many tries, an eventual 53-yard Manheim Township scoring drive was capped off with a 5-yard touchdown pass from junior triggerman, Dayne Byler, into the waiting mitts of Aiden Zulick, as the MT junior tandem made it an eye-popping 17-0 gap after this lightning-quick 42-second Streaks’ scoring march. And not to bury the lede, but it would be yet another Township underclassman, London Banks, who did the heavy lifting on this drive as the sophomore wideout hauled in a 33-yard reception which helped get the Township machine churning.
Needless to say, this game was quickly spiraling away and out of control for Cedar Crest with not even a full minute having elapsed off the second quarter clock.
Finally, one of their chief playmakers, Kai Speaks, made his presence felt.
First, the Cedar Crest senior receiver got things underway with a 50-yard kickoff return on the ensuing kickoff following this most recent Township score, propelling the guests onto the Township side of the field for the first time all night. Secondly, Speaks then proceeded to come down with a 36-yard reception tossed his way by Crest junior quarterback, Steven Reyes, ushering the Falcons down to the Township 14-yard in a flash.
That said, that would be the end of any Cedar Crest good fortunes for the remainder of the opening half.
Granted, while Speaks would then haul in a long touchdown reception, penalty flags whistled against Cedar Crest would say that he didn’t, as a back-breaking holding call ultimately led to a fourth down before this once-promising Falcons’ a drive ultimately ended with a blocked field goal and Crest having nothing to show for it.
Three drives, three Manheim Township scores. Could it then be a quadruple success? Yes. Yes, it would.
24 yards from Dayne Byler to Adriano Calcagno. A 16-yard gallop by PJ Myers. A 10-yard dart thrown by Byler to London Banks on 4th & 3. Add it all up, along with a handful of plays smattered into that grouping as well, and Township was yet again knocking on the red zone with the ball resting at the Cedar Crest 22-yard line.
Turns out, they didn’t even need to enter that area officially considering that Banks, already having a starring role of sorts throughout the first half, got lost behind the Cedar Crest secondary before snagging himself a 22-yard touchdown reception for his efforts compiled thus far, making it a commanding 24-0 Streaks’ lead with 4:01 left in the first half and a clear message being sent in the process.
But why settle for four, right?
Three-and-out posted by the defense? Check. Start your series just a smidge behind the midfield stripe? Check. Now, go cap it off.
All told, thanks to what would be a 19-yard touchdown run by way of Byler after he evaded pressure in the pocket before weaving his way through what felt like the entire end-to-end of the Falcons’ defense that capped this latest and greatest jaunt by the Streaks, Manheim Township would offer up just a sampling of the following statistics throughout the game’s first two dozen minutes.
A 31-0 lead. Three defensive three-and-outs posted across five Cedar Crest offensive possessions. All five offensive drives resulting in points – four of which were touchdowns. And, starting field position at the following yard markers: The Cedar Crest 18, midfield, the Cedar Crest 47, their own 20 (following a blocked field goal), and the Cedar Crest 45-yard line.
Simply put, it was any sort of hangover forecasted following the loss to Wilson, Township sure had a funny way of showing considering what was arguably the finest first half of play any one team could possibly draw up – prior circumstances be damned.
From here, the task at hand was largely to see if Township could keep the hammer down. Or, could Cedar Crest regroup after emerging from the halftime intermission while flashing some of the reasons as to why they were 4-0 entering this blustery evening.
Turns out, a little of this, a little of that.
Once inside the third frame, it would be Cedar Crest that was able to shift the narrative somewhat.
Chief among the reasons, returning the favor by making Township go three plays and punt coming out of the locker room with the Falcons then setting up shop for the first time offensively in the second half just 63 yards away from paydirt.
On this Falcons’ drive, even after remaining undaunted and unphased following a field-tilting sack authored up by way of Township’s Aiden Zulick which helped set the stage for 3rd & Goal at the 24-yard line, Mr. Reliable, Kai Speaks, continued his sensational play in this one for the Cedar Crest contingent by winning his one-on-one matchup against the defensive back, coming down with the 24-yard touchdown reception on said third and long, making it a 31-6 Streaks’ lead after the two-point try failed with 6:02 left in the penultimate period.
Speaking of complementary football, Cedar Crest had that shoe on the other foot.
Here, after holding Manheim Township to their second three-and-out in three offensive possessions, Cedar Crest’s Isaiah Zimmerman wasted no time as the Army running back commit dashed his way home for the 66-yard touchdown rumble to punctuate this one-play Falcons’ series with an exclamation mark, now making it a 31-12 ballgame once this second Crest two-point try went by the wayside as well with 2:08 left in the third.
Time for a quick Township counterargument.
The rebuttal would come all of 57 seconds later once Dayne Byler was able to connect with Chase Fletcher on a simple slant on 3rd & 5, with Fletcher breaking a tackle before being out the gate and home free as the 75-yard touchdown reception and run by the Streaks’ junior receiver helped close the book on a third quarter of play which showed the hosts owning a 38-12 cushion by the end of it.
All things considered, maybe perhaps best exemplified by the fact that the Streaks have upwards of 70, nearly 80 names listed on their team’s roster, this is a sum of all parts outfit. Full stop.
Yet perhaps no one exhibited that idea best for the Streaks better than Riley Whalen, a workhorse of a running back for Manheim Township on this night, as the senior toted the rock nearly 20 times against a hard-fitting Falcons bunch. And with the eventual outcome of this one already long-since decided, the only real task at hand was to make sure Whalen got his just desserts. Sure enough, a Riley Whalen touchdown run would indeed be the fitting capper on the final Township possession of the contest his 12-yard TD burst inside the final two minutes and change closed the book on what would culminate in a decisive, message-sending 45-12 verdict in Manheim Township’s favor. That message being, this Streaks’ machine doesn’t seem to be leaking much oil after that trip to Berks County last week.
“We talked it about all week. ‘What did you learn?’ What was your takeaway?’ It’s not about losses, it’s about lessons,” Manheim Township head man Mark Evans shared postgame about what the internals looked like following the setback to Wilson this past week inside his team’s camp. “You’re going to learn more from losing than you do from winning sometimes.”
“I think we learned that we’ve got to prepare better,” Evans shared. “(His players) have to own that preparation. We talked about player-led teams and owning the standard. We’re trying to get back to some of those standards that maybe we’ve let lax a little bit. The guys had a really good week of practice. A really good of week of practice, and they owned it,” he added with emphasis. “Yes, everyone was upset and we know we didn’t play our best (against Wilson), but we have to stay in control of what we can control. And what we can control is our next game.”
And for their next game, it came against anything but a pushover that was pretty resounding in nearly wire-to-wire fashion as it was against Cedar Crest.
“We’re playing complementary football,” the nearly 200-time winner as a head coach remarked bluntly on what he sees from his Streaks’ squad now literally at the halfway point of the season. “All three phases are working together and that special teams phase has just been stellar,” Evans remarked. “We need to keep that up. Overall, that complementary piece is creating good field position for us, creating a longer field for the opponent, and we need to keep that going. If we’re going to keep going towards where we hope to be going, all three phases need to keep this up.”
Yet even for someone who has overseen teams for as long as Evans has, sometimes even a veteran such as himself sees and discovers things from his squads on a week-to-week basis. That notion appears to ring true with this 2026 Blue Streaks’ cast as well.
“The other part that I’ve learned about this group all year is that they’re just unflinching,” the Streaks’ boss stated. “There’s no other way to describe it. Just totally unflinching.”
“We’ve been down in three of our five games. In two of them, we’ve been able to come back in the second half and win. One of them, we just couldn’t muster enough, and we just didn’t play our best,” Evans said harkening back to Wilson. “Again, you learn from it, and you grow from it. Get mad from it, then you better get over it, or else you’re going to get beat again.”
“We talk about the struggle,” Evans said in closing. “In order to gain confidence, you gotta struggle a little bit. We rode the struggle bus last week, but that’s a ride you always have to get off of.”
In short, if Friday night against Cedar Crest is any indication, Manheim Township’s mode of transportation isn’t, and won’t ever be a bus. Instead, after a week when it was in the shop for some repairs, the Blue Streak bulldozer appears to be back up and in operation once again.