Octorara Starts Fast, Makes A Little History Along The Way, As Braves Respond To Week-Long Absence Following Donegal Defeat By Posting Dominating Win Over Lancaster Catholic To Keep Pace In Section Three Title Race
Written by: Andy Herr on January 25, 2025
Sometimes, the best thing you can do right after suffering a tough loss is to get right back up and ride the horse again in next to no time at all. Of course, that can’t always be the case in every single instance. Especially not when the schedule dictates your fate as such. For the Octorara Braves, that’s precisely the predicament they found themselves over the course of this past week.
Prior to last Thursday night, things couldn’t have been going much better for the team located just over the Chester County line. After knocking off Manheim Central in front of the Braves’ always nutty fanbase inside a fantastic atmosphere by all accounts — a victory that erased Octorara’s only loss up until that point which was a setback against the Barons in the season’s first meeting between the two — the Braves’ upward trajectory couldn’t have been much better.
But then that trip to Mount Joy happened.
There, while fresh off arguably their two most important wins of the entire season that came in back-to-back fashion against Lampeter-Strasburg and Manheim Central as mentioned, Octorara fell victim to what was arguably the hottest team in all the Lancaster-Lebanon League over the last few weeks, Donegal, dropping a 66-59 gut-punch defeat that made the L-L Section Three race anything but clearer.
So, the $64,000 question at that point remained as to how exactly the Braves would respond after getting knocked back on their heels? However, the answer would have to wait.
Not of their own doing of course.
On Sunday, Octorara was slated to host Ridley as a part of their “Martin Luther King Classic” all-day event. But as we know now, Mother Nature had other plans in store for south central Pennsylvania last week by dumping half a foot of snow in some spots that paralyzed any sort of hoops action, including Octorara’s showcase. As a result, thanks to an impromptu break in their schedule which left them sidelined for the better part of eight days without going up against sanctioned competition, the Braves would have to stew and marinate in that Donegal loss just a little while longer.
However, that would also mean that another team would have to be the ones required to go opposite of a feisty Octorara squad understandably eager to return to action.
The team on this night? Lancaster Catholic.
Without much debate, it’s been a tough season for the Crusaders accrued thus far. Yes, while the proud purple and yellow came into Friday night in Atglen while having the unfortunate and dubious distinction of being the L-L’s lone team without having ventured into the win column yet this year at 0-17 overall, this does not in any way reflect the coaching acumen of 19th-year head man, Joe Klazas, nor the Crusaders’ program at large, which has consistently been at the forefront of the L-L discussion on a perennial basis. And hey, what better way to make a statement than to reinsert your program back on the map than by scoring what would be without question the biggest upset inside the conference yet to date in the event you could go into arguably the hardest of houses and get your first win of the season against a team in Octorara that could still be reeling and all up in their feelings when referencing that Donegal game which had passed them by?
However, as would be proven right from the opening tap on Friday night, it was rather obvious that Octorara had arrived at their friendly confines with anything but gracious intentions after sitting on the shelf for a week. So much so in fact to where the eventual possibility of a seismic upset was firmly tabled in just the first few minutes of play.
In terms of offensive efficiency, Octorara couldn’t have started off much better against Lancaster Catholic.
Specifically speaking, after seeing wiry 6’0 junior forward, Vincent Thaler, finish off an easy lob off a baseline out-of-bounds play which made it an 11-0 lead in favor of the hosts, that would in turn punctuate Octorara scoring on their first six offensive trips to begin the evening.
For the Crusaders, while he may not necessarily steal all the headlines in respect to all the collective star power that Section Three seems to boast this year, Lancaster Catholic’s Colton Hegener has established himself as a key cog among the fray nonetheless, but certainly helping to set the table for the Crusaders most of all. With that in mind, the 5’9 junior’s coast-to-coast layup at the cup was critical in its own right as it finally broke the scoring seal for the visitors, albeit while still staring up at an 11-2 deficit with a shade over three minutes remaining in the opening frame at the time.
From there however, Octorara just kept punching.
In fact, the Braves’ lead swelled outward to a 15-point difference in the aftermath of a Chase Fetrow trifecta, making it a 17-2 ballgame with just 90 seconds left in the first quarter before a Brian Sowers bunny inside for Catholic helped to close a resounding opening eight minutes with Octorara already well out in front, 17-4.
But in the second frame, a bit of history was about to made for Octorara.
Granted, while a Lazo Christou offensive rebound and put-back kept what had been the prevailing theme of the night up until that point with Octorara collecting seemingly every loose ball and rebound in sight, the 5’8 junior guard’s deuce inside was really just a harbinger of things to come considering this concluded the Braves’ first offensive trip of the new period. And yes, while a pair of buckets tallied by Noah Wise would then up the Octorara lead out to 25-4 difference with the Crusaders calling a timeout with 4:15 left to go in the half, the larger question at bay was whether or not the Braves could actually pitch a defensive shutout for the entirety of a quarter.
Well, all while Octorara kept scoring, not the least of which came courtesy of a Karter Lambert stick-back, which then preceded a pair of freebies tallied at the charity stripe by way of senior guard, Jason Johnson, the running clock come the start of the second half would indeed get rolling given the 30-point window and Octorara leading 34-4 with time still winding down before the intermission.
And speaking of that elephant in the room if you will, Octorara would indeed secure the shutout inside the game’s second eight minutes of play as the Braves sailed into the clubhouse with the decisive 36-4 lead to their benefit at the halftime break.
All that is to say, while the eventual outcome of this one was already decided before the second half even commenced, Lancaster Catholic was quite arguably the better team inside the game’s final 16 minutes on Friday night.
Case in point, Fred Albertini, a 5’10 senior guard, scoring for the Crusaders on their opening possession of the third quarter to give Catholic the 2-0 lead in terms of the second half scoring. Later, Colton Hegener continued to remain his old reliable self as the Catholic lead guard finished off a tough move amongst the Octorara tall trees — which had seemingly been blocking would-be Crusaders’ shots at will consistently on this night — making it a 40-8 affair with time winding down given the mercy-rule been triggered into effect. And not for nothing, but Lancaster Catholic was able to play Octorara to a 5-5 stalemate in respect to the third quarter scoring once the dust had settled and the final eight minutes would proceed with the Braves leading by a 41-9 count heading into the fourth.
Now, in terms of having the Crusaders reach double digits, those spoils would come courtesy of senior center, Brian Sowers, as Sowers’ hoop plus the harm made it a 42-11 ballgame which propelled the Catholic senior to team-high scoring honors with five on the evening.
But all that is to say, this was obviously a night from start to finish that was bathed in the navy blue and red colors of Octorara against their Section Three counterparts. And while a commanding 51-14 final verdict was loud enough to speak on its own merits, the fact that every single Octorara player who stepped onto the floor on Friday night hit the scoring ledger, with none scoring more than the 10 points tallied by both Noah Wise and Vincent Thaler respectively, it was clear that such a well-rounded team effort helps to pave the way for what then becomes cemented into a 37-point triumph.
“Oh yeah. You could tell they were ready,” Octorara head coach, Gene Lambert, said in the aftermath of his team’s victory on this their celebratory Senior Night. “Yesterday at practice, we got up and down (the floor) a little bit, and I just saw some energy out of them that I haven’t seen in a while,” the 24th-year boss in charge of his alma mater added of his troops coming into Friday.
“We got some rest. We actually got some much-needed rest,” Lambert said regarding his team’s week-long respite which was in some ways ironic seeing as how the Braves stay cohesive and play the sport on what feels like a year-long basis without much in the way of stoppage no matter the month on the calendar. “Even this week, we don’t play again til Thursday coming up. We were working on things, trying to get a little bit better, and deepen our bench if we can….We kind of looked at ourselves a little bit, showed some clips from the Donegal game, and we saw some things we need to correct if we want to have a chance to make and play in this league tournament, then also play in districts, and then hopefully make states.” Lambert added. “At the end of the day, that’s the goal, right? Make the league tournament, make the district playoffs, then be playing in the state tournament.”
And while the challenges from here on out figure to get stiffer, there will still be some elements and traits that regardless of whomever the opponent happens to be on the other side, will greatly benefit this Octorara club moving forward. Chief among them, their defense.
“Never. 24 years, no,” Lambert said with a bit of bewilderment in his delivery when asked whether he had ever been part of a shutout for the entirety of a quarter throughout his storied coaching career like his troops were able to put forth during the second quarter on Friday night against Lancaster Catholic. “And (Catholic) got shots too. But we were able to rebound the ball and we defended really well,” he remarked. “There were times when (Catholic) passed the ball six, seven times during the possession, so we were on them. Defensively, I would say that we were on point. We have ELCO coming up this week, so I want to see what our defense looks like for that one. And then offensively, I want to see us move the ball a little more because the other thing is, we had a lot of guys score the ball tonight. A lot of guys score the ball tonight.”
Suffice to say, for a team that could’ve had their emotions be located anywhere on the proverbial map after not having played for the better part of a week while also having to lug around the fact that their last showing was their toughest defeat of the season, the returns on investment couldn’t have been much better for Lambert and crew come the end of Friday night.
“It still bothers me,” the Braves’ coach said when asked as how much that loss to the Donegal Indians last week in divisional play still keeps him up at night albeit occurring more than a week ago now. “It bothers me because I thought we, as a young team after beating Central here, I wanted to see us go on a little run, but we just didn’t do it,” Lambert admitted. “Now, we come back and have this game tonight, have ELCO coming up on Thursday, so let’s see if we can make a little run to get where we need to be before we play L-S again. But then we have West Chester East and Haverford coming up also, so we’re going to go from resting to bing, bang, boom, real quick. Then, the season will be over and we’ll have to see where we end up once the dust clears.”
But if Friday is to be serve as any sort of indicator, it might be a while until Octorara is able to close the book on this 2024-25 campaign. Well, at least sometime until March if they have their druthers.
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