It was a balanced area hoops season, which was exemplified by the 10 schools occupying the 13 spots on the 2025-26 All-Area boys basketball team.Fort Hill, Frankfort and Southern led the way with two selections each, and Allegany, East Hardy, Keyser, Mountain Ridge, Northern, Petersburg and Union had one apiece.Coaches were asked to submit nominations from their teams for consideration, and the All-Area team was decided at a coaches meeting last week. Fourteen coaches submitted nominations and seven attended the meeting.The first team was highlighted by Allegany’s Chris Manherz, the Area Player of the Year, whose season is detailed in a separate story in Saturday’s Times-News.He’s joined on the first unit by a pair of Frostburg State commits in Jeremy Phillips of Frankfort and Cameron Breighner of Mountain Ridge, along with fellow seniors Jacob Brown (Southern) and Liam Hamilton (Fort Hill).A pair of Potomac Valley Conference juniors, Union’s Braylon Ward and East Hardy’s Gideon Good, round out the top team.Landing on the second team were seniors Jayden McNally (Northern), Kaleb Kuhn (Petersburg) and Braylon McGreevy (Keyser), juniors Kycin Waites (Frankfort) and Jameson Powell-Morris (Fort Hill), and sophomore Graham Harvey (Southern).There were also 14 honorable mentions named.

That list is at the bottom of this story.First Team Jeremy Phillips, Frankfort, Sr.Phillips will go down as one of the best, if not the best, scorers in Frankfort basketball history.The 6-foot guard finished his career with a school-record 1,448 points, and he led the area this winter in points (594), 3s (78) and 3-pointers per game (3.12), and he was third in scoring average (23.8 points per game).He made 102 of 141 free throws for a 72.3% clip, good for a tie for 12th locally.Phillips, a Frostburg State commit, was a repeat member of the All-Area first team and has won back-to-back Potomac Valley Conference Division 1 Player of the Year honors.He also appeared on the West Virginia Class AA All-State first team, a first at Frankfort since 2001 and the second time it’s occurred in school history.The senior helped guide Frankfort to the Class AA state tournament, ending the Falcons’ 16-year drought.“It was a great season for Jeremy,” Frankfort head coach Scott Slider said. “He’s quite an offensive player.

He’s really, really highly skilled, shoots the ball extremely well. Hit a lot of key buckets for us in some of our wins this year.“He shoots the ball from 3 very well. He can create space even with guys face-guarding him.

Many nights he saw that. ... Other times he could draw a guy to him and be able to get around him and get to the bucket, pull up, hitting some mid-range shots, as well as getting to the basket and finishing with a layup.”Jacob Brown, Southern, Sr.Brown had big shoes to fill with the graduation of Player of the Year Jared Haskiell and second-teamer Brayden Upole, and the senior did so admirably.The 6-foot guard finished tied for 11th in the area averaging 15.3 points and ninth in assists at 3.4 a night, and his 73 3-pointers were third locally and 3.04 3s per game were second.Brown also continued the tradition of Southern’s foul shooting excellence, making 76 of 91 free throws to lead the area at 83.5%.An All-Western Maryland Athletic Conference first-team performer, Brown was nearly unstoppable when he heated up front deep.

The senior made at least four 3-pointers in nine games.Brown has offers to continue his career at Waynesburg and Juniata.“Jacob was our team leader,” Southern head coach Hunter Broadwater said. “He put a lot of work in during the offseason to become our point guard since he has been a guard off the ball the past two seasons. He worked hard to increase his scoring ability.

We are excited to see him continue his career at the next level.”Braylon Ward, Union, Jr.It’s hard to imagine a player who meant more to their team than Ward did to Union, a school with fewer than 100 high school-aged kids.Ward, a 6-foot-1 guard, finished in the top 10 locally in every statistical category, posting averages of 24.8 points (second), 3.9 assists (tied for fifth), 7.6 rebounds (10th), 2.1 steals (10th) and 1.87 3-pointers (10th) per game.His 570 points ranked third, his 147 for 179 effort at the foul line, good for 82.1%, was second, and his 34.7% 3-point shooting percentage was fourth.Ward, who was honorable mention All-Area last year, appeared on the Class A All-State first team and All-PVC Division 3 squad.“He is the type of player who makes every player around him better,” Union head coach Walt Ward said. “He can see the floor, has great court vision.

He’s got a nasty mid-range shot. He improved his 3-point shooting from last year to this year, and he’s continuing to work on that.“He’s also one of the hardest-working kids that I’ve ever been around. We’ll have a two-hour practice, and then he sticks around for an hour shooting on the machine, or we may leave, and two hours later, we’re back in the gym. He’s p