Cocalico Makes Good On ‘Must-Win’ Game As Eagles Push Past Lancaster Catholic, Complete Season Sweep Of Crusaders While Hoping To Build Playoff Resume
Written by: Andy Herr on January 23, 2024
If you hang around long enough to check out the scenery that the L-L League boys’ basketball circuit has to offer, chances are that you’ll eventually start to pick up on some things and some underlying trends that always make their way to market. One of those of course being the undeniable fact that the Lancaster Catholic Crusaders almost always find their stride towards the tail-end of the year and eventually end the season as a far better product than how they began the year. Sure enough, here came the purple and yellow as if to be right on cue near the middle part of January this season as well.
Simply put, the Crusaders desperately needed to turn things around –and fast– by the time the perennial powerhouse program began the new calendar year of 2024. There, and certainly not a moment too soon, Catholic seemed to mimic the role of so many Crusaders’ crews found before them as they proceeded to rip off a string of four consecutive victories, three of which came against Section Three competition, which was assuredly a sight for sore eyes considering they had dropped their last eight before a nip-and-tuck 69-66 triumph over ELCO back on January 4th which seemed to kick-start the second half of their 2023-24 campaign into gear. Granted, while the Crusaders’ winning ways would eventually depart from them this past Saturday in the form of a 76-36 loss at the hands of another power offered by way of a diocese, Berks Catholic, there is certainly no shame in that as Berks Catholic largely has established itself as quite possibly the best basketball team in all of District 3 basketball this winter. Yes, regardless of your classification size of choice.
Regardless of Saturday’s 40-point verdict, for all of the Crusaders’ toil and good work put forth over the course of the last three weeks within the confines of Lancaster County by and large, Lancaster Catholic suddenly began this week in a third-place tie alongside their counterpart found on Monday night ironically enough, Cocalico, with either the Crusaders or Eagles putting themselves in prime position for a potential Octorara and/or Lampeter-Strasburg fall from grace down the home stretch with two spots in the upcoming league playoffs up for grabs. And not for nothing, but while seeing Lancaster Catholic continue to build and get better is something most fans around these parts have grown accustomed to, seeing the job accomplished by someone other than arguably the best head coach that the entire conference can claim, Joe Klazas, as the one in charge of the Crusaders’ bench is a scene much rarer by comparison. For that, major kudos, respect, and a well-earned “atta boy” needs to be distributed to the acting head man this season, Cole Portz, a 2017 Lancaster Catholic grad who wore the Crusaders’ uniform during his playing days too, and his fellow staff for eventually finding the secret sauce that has turned Catholic into a formidable foe yet again as Klazas takes this season away from a more active and intimate role in leading the program while the 19th-year head man who’s darn near always been at the top of his class most certainly remains determined to have this be just a one-year medical leave of absence in overseeing the program’s day-to-day operation.
Fittingly, their hosts on Monday would love to replicate some of that same Crusader-juju and momentum as they too head down the final furlong of the regular season.
Alright. While admittedly starting from the outside of both possible playoff windows in terms of the Lancaster-Lebanon League and District 3 postseason picture certainly isn’t the best position of which to reside heading into the final three weeks of the regular season, it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom for Cocalico the rest of the way home. Far from it in fact.
If there is a saving grace however that can help the Eagles rest their heads on the collective pillow more comfortably at night, it’s surely the fact that Cocalico still has a boatload of games left to play. Nine of ‘em in fact. Aside from the final go-round of L-L Section Three competition that began in earnest on Monday with Lancaster Catholic’s visit to Denver, the Eagles still have key “nonconference” games against the likes of Warwick, Conestoga Valley, and Red Lion on the docket, all of which will surely give the Eagles a bit of rocket fuel into their overall District 3 resume heading down the stretch, especially if a bulk of those end with more points scored than the other team at the end of the game. From a District 3 perspective most specifically, that is massive piece of the mathematical puzzle still left outstanding seeing as how Cocalico began the night sitting in the 19th spot in the eventual 14-team 5A bracket. And just like Catholic, while they too begin the final section swing while staring up at both Octorara and L-S respectively as mentioned, Monday’s affair would go a long way if either of the two prohibitive frontrunners at this juncture were to somehow falter towards the finish line. But beyond that, the task at hand for Cocalico was simply to get back to their winning ways and play the better basketball found not that long ago as the Eagles came into this new week dropping four of their previous five outings save for a 14-point home win against Donegal a week and a half ago now, a recent stretch of play that seemed to stunt their promising growth spurt exhibited right before that in the form of what was a five-game winning streak near the tail-end of December.
And in a game where both Cocalico and Lancaster Catholic entered while largely fighting for the preservation of their seasons in some or fashion, the intensity and fervor figured to be at a fever pitch inside “The Nest” on Monday night. While it was, and while both teams took their respective turns trading jabs with one another throughout the span of the game’s 32 minutes by playing hard, it would prove to be the hosts who would make just enough of plays down the stretch to complete what would be the season sweep of the Crusaders.
As one may figure, the margin of separation between these two, especially in the early going most of all, was nothing if not miniscule. True to form, while Cocalico would get out the early 3-0 lead following a Timmy Hambright trifecta, Catholic was there to retaliate right back with one dialed up by way of Brian Sowers, knotting things up at 3-apiece throughout the first minute and change.
However, it would prove to be the visitors who would be able to make the first bit of tangible headway on this night.
After continuing to trade blows over the span of the first three minutes largely, Lancaster Catholic would be the primary party to vault in front against their counterparts. First up in that regard came an offensive rebound snared down by sophomore point guard, Colton Hegener, which then resulted in a Crew Wells bucket inside, giving the Crusaders their first lead of the young evening at 7-5 with inside of five minutes remaining in the opening stanza. From there, Wells continued to be his usual dominating-type self as the Crusaders’ matchup nightmare was able to finish off a Cocalico turnover generated by Catholic’s press, making it an 11-5 Catholic lead with the Eagles burning a timeout with 3:37 left in the first.
And while Cocalico 6’1 senior point guard, Bryce Nash, would retaliate right back by tallying the Eagles’ next four points in succession by both the foul line and the field which whittled the Catholic lead down to a pair at 11-9 exactly two minutes later on the dot, Catholic would go on to finish the opening frame by adding three more to their existing total and go sauntering into the second with the 14-9 advantage.
But even inside the second stanza, just when Cocalico may have thought they had been able to build up some actualized steam and fire, Catholic was there to put the flames right out.
Case in point, while another of the Cocalico 6’1 senior guards, Tate Wealand, would fire in a triple to begin the second quarter, a timely answer from beyond the arc courtesy of Lancaster Catholic’s Ben Brody was there to follow suit as the Crusaders’ senior wing did his part to help keep the Eagles at bay. In fact, the guests from Lancaster city were able to keep their halftime cushion intact throughout much of the second act as a baseline drive from Leo Lambert which preceded a an equally adept take to the rack by Brian Sowers made it a 21-16 contest in Catholic’s favor, the difference still at five, with the second quarter rapidly winding down with Cocalico essentially being unable to puncture the Catholic lead at any point.
Or so it seemed.
Finally, and certainly not a moment too soon for what their contingent had to be thinking and feeling, the Eagles began to play with the wind in their sails. In a literal sense, that began with a Camden Ochs Euro-step move at the tin while in transition as the 6’5 junior sliced the Catholic lead down to three, 23-20, before a Nash bucket, also from within the confines of the lane, would make it a one-point affair at 23-22 with now inside of two minutes left to play before the halftime break.
That said, while Cocalico had obviously been seen working extremely hard throughout much of the opening 16 minutes to try and go back in front against their purple-clad houseguests, they largely had been kept at arm’s length during that time. Well, that was until Luke Main proceeded to get involved as the Eagles’ 6’0 senior guard would pour in his only points of the evening by way of a 3-ball, putting Cocalico back in front for the first time since the first quarter at 25-23 with inside of a minute left in the first half. And while Main’s three-point total by the end of the night may have seemed rather mundane, it would be anything but as his trey would later prove to create a lead which Cocalico would never surrender back to Lancaster Catholic for the remainder of the night.
Then, ironically perhaps, given how Cocalico had largely been playing from behind throughout much of the first half, the Eagles were able to somehow take their largest lead of the evening at the time into the locker room with them for the halftime break by virtue of the 27-23 count following a frantic final push.
But as Cocalico was sure to be well cognizant of, getting rid of Lancaster Catholic with their backs up against the wall surely figured to be something far easier said than actually done.
Granted, while the Eagles would build upon their halftime lead and go in front at 30-23 following trifecta dialed up 5’9 sophomore sniper, Timmy Hambright, the Crusaders would promptly rally back.
For the Catholic-led effort, their game-high scorer on the evening, Crew Wells, would answer Hambright’s triple with one of his own, good for three more en route to his well-rounded 19-point evening, making it a 30-26 contest with 1:10 having ticked off the third quarter clock. From there, a conventional Lancaster Catholic three-point play, this one authored by Colton Hegener, sliced the Eagles’ buffer down to the slimmest of margins at 30-29 with 5:54 still outstanding.
Yet as would become readily apparent as the third quarter continued to round into form, Timmy Hambright was more than capable of playing well above his current grade level.
Whenever it seemed that Cocalico needed a cut-stopper to stop the bleeding on this night, they would immediately turn to their 10th grade starter. Fortunately for them, not only would Hambright cease the metaphorical bleeding for his squad countless times throughout Monday night, but he would then fire in back-breakers of his own doing as evidenced by another 3-ball in the face of the current Catholic onslaught, one of Hambright’s four triples sprayed in on the evening, upping the Eagles’ advantage back to four at 33-29 with 4:53 left. And when Hambright wasn’t busy pouring it in from bonus distance, he was equally capable of scoring from within the lane, such as he was able to do while contorting his body amid traffic to finish at the cup with a deuce that made it a 37-31 Cocalico lead at that juncture, good for a two-point addition to what would end up being game-high scoring honors in the explosive underclassman posting a 20-point night at the office.
However, even despite playing with momentum at the time, the Eagles had largely failed to insert the dagger into Lancaster Catholic. Because of that, seeing the Crusaders race back to within a pair, 39-37, at the conclusion of the third frame while fresh on the heels of two straight Wells’ buckets helped to set the stage for an intriguing final eight minutes of play.
Right from the onset of the last quarter however, it became readily apparent that Cocalico being able to keep Camden Ochs out on the floor was arguably the most pressing of issues facing the Eagles’ camp right then and there. Pressing in the sense that the impressive junior was seen juggling three personal fouls while having to help hold down the fort inside while on the defensive end. Suffice to say, even while Ochs may have had a rather modest night in terms of the scoresheet given what would be his final tally of 10 once the curtain finally closed, his ability to affect the game in other ways was hard to miss. In one instance in particular, a nice feed from Ochs to a cutting Tate Wealand inside would make it a 42-39 Eagles’ lead with 5:15 left to play. And while Cocalico would later find themselves back even at 42-42 following a Leo Lambert take to the tin for Catholic, a 3-ball by, you guessed it, Timmy Hambright, put Cocalico back in front on the Eagles’ ensuing possession.
And if you’re wondering as to why exactly Lancaster Catholic was able to make that hay in that regard, it was largely due to Ochs having since exited in the aftermath of picking up his fourth personal foul. However, with their season on the brink, now was not the time to sit idly by and leave anything to chance.
With that in mind, Cocalico head coach Seth Sigman promptly reinserted Ochs back into the contest. As fate would have it, the decision would be rewarded handsomely as a perfectly executed sidelines-out-of-bounds play which saw Ochs isloated inside resulted in a key Cocalico bucket to put the Eagles up by five, 47-42, with a hair under four minutes to go in the fourth.
From there on out however, Cocalico wouldn’t let Lancaster Catholic nudge any closer.
Truth be told, while perhaps it came later than what they may have originally preferred all things being equal, it finally appeared as if the Eagles found their sought-after dagger in the form of a Hambright breakaway layup which put the hosts up by what felt like a gargantuan number, 52-44, with 1:52 left standing. And in the waning stages, Cocalico would steadily build their lead upwards to double figures, 54-44, following an Ochs bunny from point-blank range, before the dust would finally settle with Cocalico coming away with a hard-fought 57-46 final triumph against Lancaster Catholic for a victory that the Eagles sorely needed to remain within shouting distance within the Section Three playoff picture. And after Donegal’s buzzer-beating win against L-S also held on Monday night, the notion of a Cocalico league playoff appearance certainly doesn’t seem all that farfetched after all.
But again, the good news for Cocalico is that while they are still on the outside of the playoff bubble, the Eagles have a bevy of games left remaining and their best basketball still out there in front of them to try and chase.
“We’ll have a bad quarter,” Cocalico head coach Seth Sigman afterwards on Monday evening in light of his team’s most recent stretch which saw the Eagles’ wins much harder to come by of late. “We’ll have a bad quarter where we struggle to score. We’ll have a bad quarter where we don’t lock in defensively. Unfortunately, one sometimes leads into the other,” he added. “When that happens, it’s hard to win.”
Speaking of that though, he is more than aware of his squad’s current situation and the work still left unattended yet in front of them.
“It’s true though,” Sigman would say when asked if he considers this to already be postseason play in a sense given where Cocalico currently finds itself in whichever playoff race of your choosing. “We told (his players) tonight, ‘It’s a must-win game. It’s a must-win game. If you want any chance to make playoffs, of any kind, you have to win tonight.’ And then guess what? The message will be the same going into Thursday (against Conestoga Valley),” he quipped. “I mean, we have to. You can’t donate three games like we did to start the season and go 0-3. You can’t spot District 3 three games and then go .500. You have to be above .500,” he stated. “That means we have to stack up a couple (wins) in a row to help get us back to even.”
Of course, trying to find your groove against Lancaster Catholic of all teams, even despite prevailing by 16 on the Crusaders’ home floor a week before Christmas in your first meeting, wasn’t exactly the easiest way to break off the training wheels and start riding once again. Especially not when Catholic came in playing their best ball of the entire year no doubt.
“They just play really hard,” Sigman said without hesitation as to what he took in seeing Lancaster Catholic a second time now. “They did the first time too, but they made more shots tonight, especially in the first half. They got some good looks and knocked them down. Then, if you let (Crew) Wells go left, he’s tough. Believe it or not, we talked about not letting him do that. It maybe didn’t look like that, but we did talk about it with how (Wells) is very good at getting to his spot, is long, strong. So, he did a great job of getting where he wanted to go tonight,” the Eagles’ coach added humorously in the aftermath of the Lancaster Catholic all-star caliber senior earning every bit of his 19 points.
But on his side specifically, he too has a matchup piece which few others pit against one-to-one directly.
“We were gonna find out,” Sigman said when asked about bringing Camden Ochs back into the fray while in possession of four personal fouls inside the last stanza and the game starting to teeter. “We knew he had to come out once he got his third and sit a couple minutes in the fourth (quarter) if the score stayed reasonable. But it’s like, if we’re going to lose, we’re going to lose with our best player on the floor and firing all our shots,” said Sigman. “If he gets his fifth foul inside the first 30 seconds he comes back, then he does, and we’ll figure it out from there. But I’m not going to take (the game) out of his hands. If (the opponent) is going to take him out with his fifth foul, so be it. But I, I am not going to take him out of the game,” he reiterated putting finger to chest being the head man.
Remarkably though, what may be the biggest factor as to why Cocalico figures to not just play a vital for the remainder of this season, but into the future as well? Surely the fact that the most can come from a variety of different Eagles on any given night. In years’ past, that may not have always been the case.
“Yeah, it’s a nice issue for us to have every now and then,” the eighth-year head coach of his alma mater over in Denver admitted regarding the primary scoring punch being found from a litany of potential suitors. “Yes, (Timmy Hambright) is absolutely capable of going out and having 20 like he did tonight. Early in the season, he was shooting it a little bit better than he has been lately. He had a little rough stretch, but he can do that. That didn’t surprise anyone tonight. He can definitely do that,” Sigman remarked of his sophomore’s 20-point outing. “Then, if (Hambright) scores 20, maybe Camden (Ochs) scores 12-14 one night. That’s fine. The next night, maybe Cam scores 23 and Tim scores 12. That’s fine. From there, if we can get other guys going like Tate (Wealand) who had 9 and Bryce (Nash) who had 11, we’ll be tough. If we can have three, four guys in double figures, that puts us in a lot better position… If we guard,” Sigman would add in closing with one final bit of well-placed dry humor drenched in equal parts truth and validity.
And while most every Lancaster-Lebanon League section race down the homeward mile figures to get topsy and turvy, teams like Cocalico are sure to make the picture anything but crystal clear. Fitting perhaps if you know and recognize how the Eagles like to play the game itself. After all, making life anything but easy for the opposition –no matter what form or fashion it happens to take on– is a role that certainly suits the group from Denver perfectly fine.
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