Central York boys' basketball rides historic turnaround all the way to Hershey

LILITZ — Central York boys’ basketball head coach Jeff Hoke lives just two miles from the Giant Center in Hershey. He sees the arena each morning while walking his dog. For a few days in late February, however, he changed his route to avoid the sight.

The Giant Center is the premier destination for Pennsylvania high school basketball teams, as it hosts the District 3 and PIAA championships. Hoke’s Panthers, after a dominant regular season, needed just two district playoff wins to reach the Class 6A final. Instead, top-seeded Central went one-and-done in that bracket, losing 66-65 in the quarterfinals to York-Adams League rival Red Lion on Feb. 23. 

The Panthers left their home gym shell-shocked that night. But Hoke, before making the long drive home, acknowledged his team still had a path to Hershey, even if it would take a historic run through the state tournament.

Five weeks later, those words read like a prophecy.

Central York will play for a PIAA Class 6A title this weekend after knocking out defending champion Reading, 79-65, on Tuesday at Warwick High School. The Panthers, who prior to this month had won just three state playoff games in their history, will face District 11 champion Parkland at 8 p.m. Saturday in the very last game of the Pennsylvania high school campaign.

The talent was never in question for Central, which began this 28-3 eruption of a season with a 90-73 home victory over Reading on Dec. 5. District and state titles were goals well before that night. But a surreal feeling still floated through the bleachers in a jam-packed Warwick gym on Tuesday, and the celebration crescendoed as the Panthers maintained a double-digit lead all the way down the stretch.

“They deserve this,” Hoke said after the game. “That’s what I keep saying, and it brings me to tears every day. These guys deserve to win a state championship. These kids work so hard, and they’re so young — they don’t know what the big stage is.”

They’re about to find out.

History in the making: No York-Adams League public school has ever won a state title in basketball. York Catholic and Delone Catholic both have boys’ and girls’ championships in their history, but the rest of the association is 0-4 in PIAA finals. York High’s boys dropped title games in 1949 and 2009. Eastern York’s boys fell short in 1988, as did Fairfield’s boys in 2001. 

This Central York group, though, has had historic aspirations for quite some time.

The Panthers’ collection of talent is headlined by three players — senior forward Greg Guidinger, junior forward Ben Rill and junior guard Ben Natal — who expect to play Division I college basketball. The 6-7 Guidinger and 6-8 Rill give Central York one of the most imposing frontcourts in the region. But it’s the supporting cast that pushes Hoke’s team over the top. Sophomores Brooklyn Nace and Ryan Brown and junior Saxton Suchanic were all rotation mainstays last season, while sophomore Ryan Jackson and freshman Doug Layer have joined the mix this year.

“This group is special,” said Rill, who played at Westtown School as a freshman before returning to his home school district in 2022, an arrival that instantly made the Panthers the team to beat in York County.

In 2022-23, the potential was clear but the high-end results weren’t there yet. Central York lost its opener by 19 points to a Reading team that went on to go 32-1, and while the Panthers won division and league titles, they were bounced in the district quarterfinals and PIAA first round, finishing 22-8.

That opening-night win over a reloading version of Reading was the first statement. Central York added wins over multiple District 1 powers and beat eventual District 3 champ Cumberland Valley on Feb. 1. The Panthers won by 38 points in the YAIAA semifinals and 18 in the county final. Their two regular-season losses came in December, and they were without both Natal and Rill in the first one.

Central took a 15-game winning streak and 22-2 record into the district playoffs. The Panthers were able to coast through most of those games, overwhelming teams with their talent and depth. It took that one-point loss to Red Lion for the team to realize it wasn’t invincible, and that it would have to grind for everything it wanted the rest of the way. It unlocked a higher gear.

“We realized that if we go out and we just outwork everybody, the talent will take care of the rest,” Guidinger said. “The hard work puts us in position to take advantage of our talent.”

The Panthers beat Central Dauphin 81-62 and held off Cedar Crest 58-54 to secure District 3’s fifth seed in the state bracket. They turned heads with a 69-60 road win over District 1 runner-up Garnet Valley on March 9. They met Red Lion again in front of a packed house at Dallastown and never trailed after the early second quarter, winning 70-54. Then came a 71-60 win over District 7 champion Upper St. Clair last Saturday in Altoona.

Against a feisty but undersized Reading team Tuesday, Central’s big men had their way. Rill piled up 28 points on a mix of jumpers, post-up buckets and free throws. Guidinger made three first-quarter 3-pointers and had 14 of his 22 points by halftime. Natal’s 13 points all came in the second and third periods. The Red Knights (22-11) pressed the Panthers throughout the second half, but Central York never loosened their grip on the contest.

“They’re just relentless,” Hoke said of Reading. “But so are we.”

Time to shine: Hoke was seconds away from reaching the PIAA final as a player at Trinity in 1987, but the Shamrocks suffered a 43-42 semifinal loss at the buzzer against Columbia, which went on to win the state title. As a coach, Hoke guided Bishop McDevitt to the state playoffs three times in six years, reaching the second round in 2014. He briefly left Pennsylvania for Charlotte before returning and ultimately taking the Central York job in 2020, prior to Guidinger’s freshman season.

Gary Sutton, the coach of that 1987 Columbia team, is now a confidant for Hoke’s Panthers. While not officially listed as an assistant coach, the local basketball legend has helped put together Central York’s practice plans and passed along lessons from his 40-plus years in the game to a new generation of players.

“He’s like the angel on my shoulder,” Hoke said. “He’s talking me off the ledge, he’s keeping me calm … he has really helped me focus when I was so frustrated I couldn’t come out of the tailspin.”

Sutton has worked particularly closely with Rill this season — “That’s my guy,” Rill said — but he’s been impressed by plenty of the Panthers’ collective traits. Players who would start or be top scorers on other teams have accepted and embraced their roles. The second team pushes the first team in practice. And the energy has reached a new level in recent weeks.

“You look around every day and you want to slap yourself,” Sutton said of being around such a talented group. “There’s so many good ones, and more guys in the wings. … And the other thing about our kids (is) they want to win bad. And you can see it.”

Central York is still a remarkably young team. Just as Ethan Dodson was the lone senior in the rotation last year, Guidinger is the oldest Panther in this season’s lineup. (The team’s other senior, Boden Pease, was injured all season but returned to practice this month and took the floor in the final minute Tuesday.) Rill, Natal and the others have matured while in the spotlight, and the entire squad played with a distinct fearlessness in the semifinals.

In the locker room after the victory, Panther players chanted the opening lines to Meek Mill’s “Dreams and Nightmares” in unison. It’s a fitting anthem. They used to pray for times like this, but they had to grind like that to shine like this. And now they’re set to shine on the biggest stage possible.

“My fear was that the lights would be too big,” Hoke said. “They don’t see it. They don’t even care. They’re so locked in right now, they just want to win, and that’s what’s beautiful. They’ve taken ownership of the team since Red Lion — it’s off me and it’s on them — and it’s wonderful.”

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