Octorara Adds Seventeenth Chapter To Storybook Season As Braves Make Quick Work Of Olney On MLK Afternoon, Remain Undefeated Heading Towards Postseason With More History To Be Made

Written by: Andy Herr on January 19, 2026

Coming into this 2025-26 season, we figured they’d be good. But, c’mon. This good? Shoot, outside of their own locker room, even with all the logical, plentiful optimism and all, the jury would’ve probably been out if you were to tell the masses as to where the Octorara Braves’ boys’ basketball team stood at the Martin Luther King Jr holiday this winter.

First and foremost, Octorara was the odds-on favorite to win the Lancaster-Lebanon League Section Three title prior to the start of this season. We can establish that without much in the way of any further debate all the necessary. Beyond that though, that’s where this year’s ride has suddenly transformed into something otherworldly.

As far as the record books will tell you, there has never been a better start to a season in Octorara program history than this one currently unfolding. Period. Full stop. But what does that equate to? How about a perfect 16-0 overall record coming into this week, a full two-game lead when it came to potentially fulfilling L-L section title dreams, a feat that would continue with this ongoing history-making narrative enveloped around this season as the Braves have never accomplished such a achievement in their still somewhat brief history as an L-L member. Even further inside that scintillating start, how about no opponent on the Braves’ entire schedule thus far save for four teams that have even come within single digits of them?

Yet maybe the most incredible aspect of it all? The fact that Octorara leans so heavily – almost to the point of exclusivity – upon it’s starting five.

So much so in fact that aside from the Braves’ consistent starters found in Lazo Christou, Chase Fetrow, Karter Lambert, Vincent Thaler, and Vito Vespe respectively, all of whom average in double figures, the next individual in line following the initial core five drops significantly down to all of three points-per-game tallied on average. Simply put, for a public 5A school to have all already written such a large foreword in their school’s history books while also sitting on the precipice of writing even more before the year is over with by virtue of the starting five carrying nearly every piece of mail and then some, there are more ways than one as to why this might be a season not seen again for quite some time – and that’s whether you make it Octorara-centric or not.

So, logically, the question now becomes, how long can they keep this up?

And while the Braves were originally supposed to receive arguably their stiffest test of the year this past Saturday while entertaining Holy Ghost Prep, Mother Nature decided to intervene and call things off which meant that the Braves next time out of the court would come on Monday afternoon, Martin Luther King Day, with a trip to Philadelphia for a neutral site game opposite of Olney Charter, a strong outfit from the Philly Public League in their own right considering the Trojans’ 11-3 mark coming in to the holiday matinee held at Northeast High School.

However, not even this assignment, a rare noontime tip-off for a game played in a somewhat far and distant land against a foe they had next to no familiarity seemed to deter Octorara from adding another chapter to this storybook season. Chapter #17 as a matter of fact. Seventeen iterations without the need for an eraser just yet.

If there was any possibility of any drama to perhaps be found in this game, Octorara put that notion to bed. Quickly.

In fact, following his second bucket inside of the early action that came part in parcel with his ferociousness in cleaning up and wiping the offensive glass, Octorara’s Vincent Thaler made it a 7-0 count in the Braves’ favor with Olney clearly knocked back on their heels to put it mildly with not even a full three minutes of gametime having gone by.

Later, the Braves’ lead would swell up to double figures at 13-2 following a smooth pullup jumper splashed home by the lone junior in the starting lineup amongst a quartet of seniors, Karter Lambert, as the 6’4 wing helped set the table for what would then morph into a commanding 20-4 Octorara cushion following an old-fashioned three-point play put together by Thaler with 1:50 left in the opening frame as the team from Chester County wasn’t looking back in the rearview mirror whatsoever and instead operating at full throttle.

Speaking of Lambert, he too would revel in the spoils of a bucket completed through contact not long afterwards as his all-cotton three-ball in front of the Olney bench turned into a successful four-point venture following his freebie at the charity stripe to cap it off, an exchange which saw the Braves’ lead balloon out to a 26-6 difference before the sun would finally set on a first quarter of utter dominance shown by Octorara considering their 29-6 advantage to essentially make the eventual outcome of this game all but a formality with 75% of the game still left outstanding.

Sure enough, the second quarter proved to be more of the same for the Braves’ band.

On this day, while all five of their starters wouldn’t quite hit the average when it came to all of them finishing with upwards of 10 points before the day was over with, Lazo Christou would not fit such a description of failing to meet the clip as the Braves’ 5’8 senior guard not only pumped in an 11-point outing to his day at large, but also threw in a dead-eye triple at the 5:06 mark of the second quarter which then saw his team’s lead expand out to a 36-12 margin.

From there, it was time for the bench to get involved. And that’s precisely what Troy Madison offered to the Braves’ collective ensemble as the 5’8 sophomore guard’s floater in the lane made it a 25-point gap, 38-13, with the triggering of the mercy-rule suddenly becoming a very real possibility.

And while Olney’s physically-built 6’2 junior forward, Ni’eem Gregory, would counter back with a 3-ball to add onto his nice first half of play personally to help steer the Trojans’ ship that made it a 43-19 ballgame with two minutes left in the opening half, it was nonetheless a steep and daunting uphill challenge for the Carolina blue and black Olney Trojans to dig out from inside the final 16 minutes considering their existing 44-21 deficit come the end of the first half on Monday.

Yet to their credit, Olney most certainly played the initial stages of the third frame better than Octorara did once the teams returned for the second half of play.

Sure enough, that near 30-point Octorara lead held not long prior had been sliced down to a 19-point margin, 47-28, in the aftermath of a triple sunk by Olney 5’10 junior guard, Amaree Frazier, with only 2:30 having come off the third quarter timer.

But the Braves, Vincent Thaler, most of all, put their foot down.

On the season, Thaler, standing as the Braves’ “big man” at all of 6’1 in his Nike sneakers, packs a scoring punch to the tune of 12 points-per-game on average for the Octorara contingent. Yet the senior’s value is far greater and more substantial than what any statistical average will lead you to believe. Aside from his constant hustle and nose for ball which saw Thaler come down with a litany of rebounds all throughout Monday’s proceedings in particular, Thaler was justly rewarded by the basketball gods for his hustle plays in coming away with a career-high performance, a 32-point showing, to pace the Octorara charge against Olney in this special holiday matchup. And if his impact on the game wasn’t already felt enough by that time, consider his pair of back-to-back buckets, the last of which culminated with a three-point play, to push any possible Olney threat away with the Braves’ cushion still standing firm at 52-28 with 4:18 left in the third by that point.

Later, with another member of the Octorara bench getting in on the action, Demetrius Hamilton, promptly offering up his own five-point salvo inside the waning stages of the penultimate period, Octorara was well on their way towards heading home in vanquishing this Public League adversary thanks to the senior’s exploits considering the Braves’ commanding 61-36 held after three.

Yet even in the fourth, the shots just continued to fall for Octorara.

Aside from two more Thaler buckets which then made it a 66-44 game with the final act now well underway, it was Vito Vespe’s turn, a 10-point scorer on the afternoon, to get his moment to shine as the Braves’ 6’3 senior fired in a triple to make it a gargantuan 72-48 lead with 4:04 left to play.

Lastly, after getting his chance once checking in, Carter Matys only picked up where everyone else in a Braves’ navy-colored uniform had left off.

Case in point, the Octorara 5’9 freshman guard fearlessly firing in a triple on his very first touch of the pill the entire day as the Matys’ trey pushed the Braves’ lead back out to a 25-point clip, 75-50, with time winding down.

And once the dust had settled, 75-55 final verdict in Octorara’s favor over Olney and all, you still got the sense that this was nothing more than a business trip for these Braves. Makes sense, doesn’t it? This is sort of old hat after all for them at this point. Even the star of the game seemed to exude such a matter of fact-ness as well.

“No, I have no idea,” Octorara’s Vincent Thaler candidly admitted when asked afterwards if he was cognizant of how many points he had just tallied in a game that had only been over for all of five minutes. “32? Wow,” he then said with smile extending ear-to-ear after being told of his feat. “Unless we go back to sixth grade, that’s my career-high on varsity for sure. We’ll go with that,” Thaler joked of his 32-point outing against Olney.

“I move around and my guys find me,” said Thaler then as to what was working on this day and on the season as a whole for him personally. “I don’t really hit 3’s a lot or anything like that,” he acknowledged. “My teammates are the ones making the moves for me. I’m just in the right place at the right time and I try and finish when they find me….These guys, they all create shots, get each other going, get me going,” Thaler continued of his peers and his role in the overall operation in doing the so-called dirty work. “When they put up a shot, I’m just going to be there and put it right back up if they miss.”

And for a coach who’s seen a thing or two over the years while sitting at the head of the bench, Octorara head coach Gene Lambert is acutely aware that he is currently coaching a pretty unique and special team.

“I’ve had more talented teams, more talented starting fives. But as far as playing together, this is the best. This is the best,” Lambert said proudly of his starting five who continue to do the lion’s share of the work in flying the team’s flag this season to a still unblemished record. “They just know where each other are. They look for each other…They get it done together,” Lambert continued. “If one of them were missing, it’d hard for the rest of them to get it done.”

Now, being 17 games up and zero games down in terms of the season ledger, it’s a fair question to ask these Braves as to which of these legacy-defining streaks they might hold most dear with literally everything still in front of them just as it was before the ball even tipped off two days after Thanksgiving when their season began. But good luck getting them to admit that and have them show their cards. Like their collective games out on the floor, they’re far more grizzled than to give up any fodder like that.

“We try to keep our minds. We don’t try and get ahead of ourselves,” Thaler said of the internal operation as it to what he and his fellow players are feeling while owning a 17-0 mark heading into the back end of January. “Right now, we just look forward to the next game. The next game for us now just so happens to be for that section (title). That’s all we’re really looking at right now.”

“We even just talked a little bit about it right there with the coaches,” Thaler shared after coming from the team’s victorious postgame huddle. “We just look towards the next game. That’s all we can do.”

His head coach would likely love such mature responses.

“This started when they were sophomores. After every game, like today I said, ’17-0 is better than 16-1, right?’ If we were 8-8 and won a game, I’d say, ‘9-8 is better than 8-9,’’” Lambert said of his message to the troops while in the midst of this ongoing run through history. “It’s always like that to play on the numbers because it’s all ways about one more. One more. Let’s go get one more.”

“Also, we don’t really talk about districts as much because these guys have all been around so long now,” he added with a laugh of bewilderment as if to openly wonder where all this time with this core group has gone. “Our guys know what districts look like. They know how it works. I don’t have to explain how it all works. (His team) understands that if we are blessed to get a top two seed, then we know we got some home games coming. Some tough home games coming, but they’d all be at our place…Even today, before we got out of here, I said, ‘We don’t play til Friday, but that’s for the section championship. Something we’ve never won before at Octorara.’”

“They have a sense of what’s going on and they’re not looking too far ahead,” Lambert added of his squad. “Myself and my coaching staff? All those guys have been with me forever,” the Braves’ head man remarked of his loyal assistants. “We’ve been here. We’ve been in different situations, and we know what to say, what not to say.”

Right now, maybe there’s only thing that actually needs to be said – Keep it going and keep it rolling.