Lancaster Country Day Comes Up With Workmanlike Performance To Surge Past Annville-Cleona As Cougars Ride 20-Point Fourth Quarter Onward To Victory, Completing Season Sweep Over Dutchmen
Written by: Andy Herr on January 29, 2026
It’s late January. There’s a little over a week left in the regular season. That means we’ve officially reached that time of year. The time when the basketball beauty pageants and style points can finally be thrown out the window. Right now, once it gets down this level of nitty-gritty, this is when it’s all about getting the job done — by any means necessary.
For the Lancaster Country Day Cougars, the #3 seed in the District 3-1A playoff field coming into the night by virtue of their accumulated power ranking thus far, that was most certainly the task at-hand once they boarded the bus and traveled northward to conclude their season series against the Annville-Cleona Dutchmen, a squad most certainly playing their best basketball of the year, considering how A-C came in riding a two-game winning streak prior to entering what would be the final stretch of the Lancaster-Lebanon League Section Four slate with all of three games still outstanding for those clubs.
And while the Cougars bid to return back to the league playoffs for what would have been the second consecutive year have since been extinguished before to this excursion into Annville, this was nonetheless a critical game for LCD to not drop considering these Cougars – perhaps when compared to most everyone else in the league in its totality– truly see their season begin once the playoff brackets get released considering that is when the time of their season when schedule gets somewhat, dare we say, slightly more manageable, as that is the only time all season-long where Country Day will end up encountering nothing but fellow 1A foes until the clock ultimately happens to strikes zero on their season. Yet need we remind everyone for a bit of a refresher when it comes to recent history, but Country Day was the last L-L League boys’ team left standing in March last winter with the Cougars’ trip to the state semifinals. This season, when looking at the Cougs’ performances against the likes of both the 1A and 2A opponents they’ve seen thus far in 25-26, Country Day is 6-1 against like-competition. So yeah, assuming they get another favorable draw, something that would be buoyed by knocking off the Dutchmen on here in mid-week, it just might end up being another case of déjà vu for the Lancaster-Lebanon League’s smallest school once the list of remaining conference teams still playing starts to dwindle.
But while this game might’ve resembled a trip to the dentist office more than a high school basketball contest, the Cougars would ultimately get a clean bill of health come the end of the evening after coming up out of the chair. Yes, even if Annville-Cleona had refused to provide any sort of local anesthetic at any point throughout the game’s 32 minutes.
Chief among the problems of LCD’s perspective, the fact that the Dutchmen largely towered over the Cougars’ lineup from top-to-bottom. Literally.
Speaking of which, Annville-Cleona’s Hudson Sellers, the lone senior on the entire Dutchmen roster, was most definitely a force that the visitors had to tangle with as A-C’s 6’3 big man began the evening by tallying a handful of buckets inside — the last of which awarded Sellers eight of A-C’s first 12 points — but it was Sellers’ activity at-large seen all throughout an impressive opening frame personally which had helped power the hosts out to an early 12-9 advantage with 80 seconds left remaining in the first period by that point.
Then, come the start of the second quarter with Annville-Cleona’s lead holding firm at three, 14-11, the hosts gradually began building upon their lead.
For a team that had dropped the season’s prior meeting back on December 12th by a 16-point margin to the tune of a 53-37 defeat, the Dutchmen, perhaps ignited by their aforementioned successful stretch of late that saw come in on a legitimate winning streak, were certainly not the least bit intimidated.
Case in point, a Max Ortwein trifecta which had raised the curtain on the second stanza to conclude A-C’s first offensive trip before a deep two sunk by way of James Garney later made it a 22-17 Annville-Cleona advantage as the pair of Dutchmen sophomores who stand over 6-foot at 6’3 and 6’6 respectively, put the crowd on their feet with just 1:40 left to go before halftime.
Problem was, Lancaster Country Day’s Chris Tucker saw that as more than enough time to make his imprint on the game.
On the night, while Tucker, a talented 5’11 junior guard, would finish with a baker’s dozen in finishing runner-up to Chase Leed’s 15-points which had paced the Cougars’ effort on the night, it was his late second-quarter surge that one could argue helped to tilt the game’s eventual favor in his team’s direction.
Specifically, Tucker would rattle off timely 7-0 run all his own inside the final 100 seconds of the first half as a final 3-ball sunk just prior to the horn served as the exclamation point as despite trailing for the entirety of the second stanza up until that point, Lancaster Country Day had somehow found themselves leading at the break, 24-22, all of which came courtesy of Tucker’s final exploits.
Later, once the third quarter got underway, two things became readily apparent. First and foremost, Lancaster Country Day was in the middle of authoring their largest lead at any point yet seen in the contest. Secondly, Annville-Cleona was unknowingly assisting in said effort by going cold from the field in between halves.
And never more did that theme prove to be more evident than with LCD senior guard, Jordan Ashby, completing a take to the cup which not just made it a 30-22 Cougars’ lead with 4:40 left in the third, but it also signified an ongoing, roughly five-minute scoring drought that the Dutchmen had to then work themselves out of.
Ironically enough, like a contagion of sorts, the scoring drought simply ended up trading benches.
Finally, and certainly not a moment too soon they had to feel, Annville’s John Ditzler promptly ended the current dry spell for his team as the fearless 5’4 sophomore point guard came away with a tough take to the rack which made it a 30-24 ballgame before another deuce chipped in from point-blank range, this one courtesy of James Garney, who shared in team-high scoring honors alongside Hudson Sellers with each pitching in a dozen next to their names in the scorebook respectively, trimmed the Cougars’ lead all the way down to a pair, 30-28, the exact same margin and score which held firm over the course of the final 40 seconds of the third frame with Lancaster Country Day suddenly going ice-cold themselves over the latter portion of the penultimate quarter.
Speaking of Garney, he only continued with his same tried and true tricks once the final act got underway.
In fact, following a put-back by way Garney and his 6’6 frame, the score was suddenly knotted up at 30-apeice and the Cougars still desperately looking to get out of the Sahara with some sort of bucket.
Turns out, they wound up finding a well’s worth of water instead.
While it might’ve been hard to predict at the time – especially considering how this game had largely been defined by it’s back and forth nature up until that point – a timely Chase Leed bucket at the tin on the ensuing LCD trip down the floor not just ended what had become their own nearly five-minute long dry spell, but it then brought rain for the entire Country Day contingent.
Speaking of Leed, following his bucket in transition which had upped the Cougars’ cushion back to half a dozen at 39-33, the Cougars’ 5’10 sophomore point guard became the first member of the LCD ensemble to reach double figures scoring while en route to his cumulative game-high 15-point showing as mentioned.
Then, in perfect complementary fashion, it was the Cougars’ collective efforts defensively working in tandem with their 20-point fourth quarter performance offensively which ultimately helped to seal the door shut on any possible Annville-Cleona rebuttal heading down the final stretch.
For that, it’d be hard to overstate the importance of Chris Tucker’s tie-up within that defensively-driven fray as the junior’s peskiness and nose for the ball not just thwarted a Dutchmen offensive trip with nothing to show for it while down by a 41-35 count with 1:53 remaining, but it also resulted in a jump ball with the possession arrow pointing in Country Day’s direction and the opportunity ripe for the Cougars to try and extend their existing lead.
From there, while Annville-Cleona would be able to creep inside of the ten-point bulge that Country Day had then built for themselves inside the final minute following a pair of successful 2-2 trips to the foul line by way of Tucker that would make it a 45-35 affair, any actual final-minute drama wouldn’t be found in any ample supply.
And once time ran out and Lancaster Country Day was able to walk off Annville-Cleona’s home floor with a 50-37 win for their troubles on Wednesday night, it was indeed a productive business trip into Lebanon County where the main objective had been completed. With it, one more tally mark to check off prior to the time year where the Cougars always seem to shine the brightest.
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