With Season Standing At Critical Juncture, Cocalico Holds Off Stern Oley Valley Challenge To Notch Second Straight Win As Eagles See Nothing But ‘Important’ Games On The Horizon
Written by: Andy Herr on January 16, 2025
It’s finally that time of year when we can start talking about it. For some, it’s a topic to avoid like the plague. For others, it’s their north star that will be their guiding light over the last half of the regular season. That being the story of the looming District 3 playoffs of course. For others, like the Cocalico Eagles for instance, it’s just a fact of life here in the middle of January.
In some ways, the group from Denver is the perfect microcosm for what the Lancaster-Lebanon League resembles on the boys’ basketball side of things here overall here in the year 2024-25. Yes, while the Eagles came into their Wednesday affair while possessing a sub .500 overall record while currently looking upward at the cut line as it relates to their District 3-5A playoff chances, their 4-3 Section Two record however has them sitting just one game outside of a potential league playoff berth on the other hand. In some years, most perhaps, the aspirations of making the L-L League playoffs would already be extinguished with such a mark. However, the good news for Cocalico is that no matter how the first leg of the season may have turned out, the Eagles still have the opportunity to control a lot of – if not the entirety – their eventual destiny when it comes to postseason play once the dust settles. That said, a mere 24 hours after securing a key divisional win over a rapidly improving Solanco on their home floor, Cocalico returned right back to action on Wednesday with a rare trip to Oley Valley to tangle with the Lynx, a Berks County outfit that came into the night while residing in the #14 hole as it related to the smaller 4A field conversely.
Suffice to say, while one game would not a season define, the fact of the matter that was for a team already in the midst of their own makeshift version of playoff basketball from here on out, this would be a game that the Eagles could ill-afford to drop.
Once the ball tipped off on Wednesday night, Cocalico appeared to be up to the task at hand by jumping out to the early lead. However, with a little over five minutes remaining in the opening frame, things began to make a turn. A turn towards the Lynx that is.
There, after 6’3 senior muscle-bound big man, Tristin McFarland, became the first Oley Valley player not named Chase Domenech to tally points for the Lynx effort with a determined take to the rack which made it a 7-6 lead in favor of the hosts, Oley Valley began to expand on their advantage. In fact, the Lynx would end up doubling up their guests at 12-6 following a 3-ball knocked down by junior guard, Evan Fisher, with Cocalico prompted into burning a timeout with 3:05 left in the quarter by that point.
From there, the Lynx cushion swelled upward to eight at 16-8 following four more points credited to McFarland before a transition layup at the cup that was finished off by way of Domenech, assisting in finishing off what would culminate in a 13-2 Oley Valley jaunt over the latter half of the first quarter to help push the hosts into the second stanza with ownership of the 18-8 lead.
In terms of first half scoring outputs, while there were indeed eight other players out on the floor throughout, it seemed as if Oley Valley’s Tristin McFarland and Cocalico’s Camden Ochs were really just playing their own game of one-of-one against each other.
Case in point, while McFarland would continue his scintillating first half performance with a stick-back bucket to start the second quarter proceedings, his direct matchup, Ochs, would counter back with a nice mix of outside/inside play by first pumping in a trifecta before later following that up with a take to the rack which helped to bring Cocalico back within four, 22-18, in little to no time at all considering 5:45 left before the halftime horn. Not long afterwards, Ochs would continue laying the groundwork for what would become his team-high scoring performance in netting a 19-point effort by the conclusion of things while getting the Eagles back within a pair at 22-20 here just 20 seconds later.
And finally, following a Timmy Hambright theft and layup following the pilfer, Cocalico had climbed all the back in front, 25-24, with 4:06 left before the intermission as the Eagles found themselves in the middle of authoring a 13-6 gut-check response to regain the lead. Then, while obviously playing with the wind inside their sails, the Eagles steadily improved their margin before retiring to the clubhouse in seeing 6’0 junior guard, Ty Wealand, finish off the first half festivities with a pair of acrobatic buckets in the waning stages to propel the Eagles into the break with the 33-25 lead to cap off what was a nothing if not impressive second quarter showing that was largely stemmed from their work on the defensive side of the floor.
However, unfortunately from Cocalico’s perspective most of all, Oley Valley wouldn’t take so kindly to the idea of the Eagles potentially running away and hiding for the remainder of the contest.
Specifically speaking, following a 5-0 personal run credited to Lynx 6’0 senior guard, Ben DeBalko, right out of the chute to begin the third frame, a Chase Domenech bucket at the hole would follow suit which meant that Oley Valley had raced all the way back to within a point at 33-32, all while Cocalico had to a call a quick timeout in order to regroup and right the ship with 5:11 left in the quarter.
But to their credit, much in the way in which they will have to approach the remainder of their season left in front of them, Cocalico, even with their backs up against the wall somewhat, responded with a vengeance.
Despite the current Lynx haymaker that had been landed on them, the Eagles came back with a run of their own, this of 10-1 variety, as a Timmy Hambright triple that came with the Eagles’ 5’10 junior guard rifling in a 3-ball – all en route to his 17-point night’s worth of work – off a wonderfully executed halfcourt set, quickly made it a 43-34 Cocalico cushion with now Oley Valley being the ones forced to stem the tide by calling a timeout with now 1:54 left in the third.
All told, while the visitors would latter surrender a nice spinning move en route to the hoop that was finished by the man of the hour on Wednesday evening, Tristin McFarland, who ended his evening by snatching game-high scoring efforts with a 24-point showing, his latest bucket in the here and now made it a 44-39 affair at the end of 24 minutes all while Cocalico figured to still be required to hold off one final Oley Valley push down the homeward mile.
And that’s precisely what the Eagles were forced to do.
Speaking of McFarland, it’d be nothing if not impossible to estimate as to where the Lynx would be without his efforts in general against Cocalico. But for finite specifics, the senior’s pair of buckets from point-blank range to help raise the curtain on the fourth quarter action seemed ample enough considering how McFarland had helped to bring his squad back within four, 50-46, with not even two minutes evaporated off the fourth quarter clock by that point. Then, with the Lynx continuing to push downhill, both teams suddenly found themselves inside a deadlocked affair at a 50-50 stalemate with 4:30 left to play following a Domenech bucket at the tin that knotted things up.
It wouldn’t take a Herculean effort, but it would require the correct effort. For that, Ty Wealand was up to the challenge inside of the final stretch on Wednesday night.
There’s something to be said for being the son of a coach. They always seem to be the ones that have the highest basketball IQ’s. For good reason too. And while that that may indeed be true when it comes to the Cocalico junior guard, the hustle plays in which Wealand delivered to his troops with the game on the line didn’t require much thinking. Just doing.
So, with the game hanging on the knife’s edge, Wealand proceeded to score two monumental buckets with the two teams still trading jabs with one another, as Wealand’s final deuce within that back-and-forth snapshot awarded the lead back to Cocalico, 54-52, with now inside of four minutes left to play in the contest. And when it came to wrapping up his night overall, while he would proceed to score 17 points next to his name come the final gun, Wealand’s invaluable efforts went far beyond that singular number by itself.
That said, it would prove to be a lead which the Eagles would never relinquish.
In fact, Cocalico would go on to enjoy their largest lead since the final moments of the previous quarter once 6’5 senior big man, Camden Ochs, finished off a nice pump fake move from within the paint to make it a 58-52 Eagles’ advantage with now two minutes left to be played.
And while the Lynx would cut the deficit back down to four at 58-54 in the aftermath of a timely Davyan Moore bucket contributed by way of Oley Valley’s 5’11 sophomore wing, there would be no further dramatics from there on out. As a result, thanks to a successful 4-4 venture to the charity stripe courtesy of the shared efforts via Hambright and Wealand respectively, Cocalico was able to finally put a bow on this critical nonconference affair with a 62-56 final triumph after staving off a very game Oley Valley cause exerted throughout.
Afterwards, while obviously happy that they didn’t experience the other potential result, for Cocalico head coach Seth Sigman, there was still an understandable feeling that some meat was left on this bone.
“It was all effort stuff at the beginning,” Sigman bemoaned while harkening back to the start of the contest. “Bad turnovers, bad shots. Bad shots almost always turn into easy buckets (for the other team) down on the other end. I don’t know how many times that happened in the first quarter, but it was at least three or four times,” said Sigman of Oley Valley’s comfortability early on. “We weren’t executing our offense all the way around and then we weren’t getting back defensively. I don’t know how many runouts (Oley Valley) had, but it was way, way too many.”
However, after successfully weathering this Oley Valley storm nonetheless, whether self-inflicted or otherwise, the added bit of good news for the Eagles is that Cocalico still has a bevy of games left in front of them down the final stretch in which they can improve and make those gains. In totality, Cocalico still has eight remaining games left in front of them in order to try and cement whatever their future ends up looking like. Certainly better to have the ability to have matters within your own hands rather than depending on a ton of outside help to be sure.
“It’s just kind of how it worked out,” Sigman said of his team still having roughly 1/3rd of their season still left outstanding inside the final few weeks. “It wasn’t intentional. It wasn’t by design. Especially with the nonleague’s, you just have to go and fill them in wherever, and whenever both schools can. Like for us, this is a tough week,” the 9th-year head coach remarked. “We have a tough section game last night with Solanco, have this one right after, then have another tough game on Friday with Garden Spot. But, for me, I’d rather have it this way where the section game is first on the back-to-back rather than the nonleague…For us, every game is important. We’re trying to scrap to try and make districts. That’s just where we’re at. This one makes it two in a row which gets us to .500 overall. With the way we are in being 5A, most of our section plays are against 6A’s. So yeah, 11 (wins) might get us in. 12 probably, likely gets us in.”
But that’s a matter for Sigman and his staff to worry about. As far as his players are concerned, he wants their sole focus to remain on the daily operation.
“The coaches are the ones paying attention to all that,” he said regarding the state of play found outside the four locker room walls. “For the guys, it’s just a matter of keeping whatever’s in front of you as the sole focus. If we do that well enough, consistently enough, we’ll be where we want to be at the end.”
As far as this week is concerned, if that is indeed the modus operandi in Eagles’ camp, the first two results compiled thus far suggest that the formula seems to be one of the winning ilk.
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