Solanco Continues Sizzling Start As Golden Mules Add Another Early Pelt In Knocking Off Garden Spot, Keep Pace With Divisional Leaders

Written by: Andy Herr on December 18, 2025

When you’re in the middle of a title chase, style points don’t necessarily matter all that much. Sure, it’s great to have an average margin of victory that makes you feel all fat and happy, but those can sometimes be nothing more than empty calories. And while section play only just commenced around the Lancaster-Lebanon League, and we’re still a literal week away from Christmas too for that matter, that’s nonetheless the position that the Solanco Golden Mules already found themselves residing.

While the official standings are still somewhat janky and off script with Section Two teams having played a hodgepodge of games that came part in parcel with having to work around weather postponements and the like with a true scheduling imbalance in full effect, the fact of the matter is that coming into this week at least, Solanco had every right to feel as if they were right there with the other heads of the class.

The Mules’ 1-1 section record would lend credence to that as the group from Quarryville trailed only Cocalico and Conestoga Valley respectively at the top of the heap, the two teams there at the literal top, along with E-town too for that matter even the Bears have only played one section game to date and are unblemished themselves.

And the schedule has been anything but fluff and cupcakes from Solanco’s perspective.

The literal last team to get their season underway this year, the Mules have certainly made up for lost time in coming into Wednesday night’s affair with a 2-1 overall record, victories that have ironically all come against fellow Lancaster-Lebanon League competition when you factor in that divisional record along with a fruitful road triumph this past week at Lebanon to boot.

Simply put, there wasn’t all that much to scoff at in totality when judging Solanco’s body of work compiled thus far with the Mules well-engaged while in hot pursuit of that aforementioned section title they hope to contend for in the weeks and months ahead.

For that reason, that’s exactly why Wednesday night had to go off without a hitch.

As far as their opponent on this night was concerned, they would’ve loved nothing more than to throw a huge wrench into disrupting any of this good Solanco momentum.  

For the Garden Spot Spartans, this whole year will likely be defined growth and improvement from start to finish.

If you recall, the Spartans came into this 2025-26 campaign absent of the school’s most recent 1,000-point scorer, Jace Conrad, as Conrad exited stage left this past spring with his diploma in hand which ultimately created a significant void for the Spartans to try and color in. And so far this season, it’s been rather apparent in judging just their final scores alone that they have indeed struggled somewhat to replace that offensive punch when considering that Spot had only cracked the 40-point barrier once so far this season – including scoring no more than 35 points in any of those other games —  while en route to a 1-5 overall mark out of the chute.

But hey. What better way to perhaps feel good about yourselves than by potentially taking someone else down, right?

With that in mind, that was one of the foremost reasons as to why Solanco’s road trip to New Holland on Wednesday night was so intriguing. One team looking to keep up the pace with the rest of the gang. The other meanwhile just trying to knock the opposition off that gait and perhaps gain one themselves.

In the end though, while it may not have been the most glamorous 32 minutes of ball that they will put forth this season, Solanco will worry about the aesthetics and glamour for another day. On this night, it was all about fulfilling the mission of a business trip.

To begin the midweek proceedings in this contest, Solanco didn’t waste all that much time when it came to landing their first punch.

Roughly 1:30 worth of game time as a matter of fact as a corner trey run off a nice set sunk by 5’9 senior guard, Owen Kut, ushered the Mules out to a 7-0 advantage with Garden Spot still trying to net that elusive first bucket of the contest for their side following an initial cold shooting spell.   

Finally, the hosts would crack that scoring seal courtesy of a fearless take to the cup through contact by way of Garden Spot 6’0 senior guard, Owen Sauder, making it a 7-3 ballgame 40 seconds later as Sauder was able to complete the traditional three-point play while en route to an 11-point evening.

In truth, while perhaps difficult to forecast at that time, that would prove to be all the closer Garden Spot would get for the remainder of the competition.

It certainly didn’t help matters from their side once another member of the Mules’ ensemble of guards littered across the entire roster, Garrett Wagner, splashed in a trifecta of his own to make it a 14-5 Solanco cushion with 2:15 left to play in the first at that time.

And while Spot’s Sammy Plaza would counter back in kind with a smooth pullup jumper that cut the deficit in half, 14-7, with 50 seconds remaining, Solanco was able to ride the benefit of a 16-7 lead with them into the second stanza.

Remember that prior tidbit about Garden Spot being able to get no closer than four points to Solanco’s better on the night? Well, that almost went up in smoke throughout the initial stages of the second quarter ironically enough.

While ignited by a pair of 3-balls splashed via the handiwork of the junior duo found by way of Seth Musselman and Cooper Usner respectively, the Spartans had suddenly whittled a near double-digit Mules’ advantage all the way down to five, 20-15, as Usner’s trey with five minutes to go before the halftime break brought Garden Spot back into the fight with Solanco struggling somewhat to find a sustained groove.

But get their groove back they would.

For that assignment, the other member of Wagner clan, Nolan Wager, followed Garrett’s earlier lead and proceeded to dial up a triple of his own, this one making it a 25-15 Mules’ lead to rebuke this latest Garden Spot charge, before Kiran Ludgate came away with a nice take to the cup of his own right behind it, now upping the Solanco lead out to a 27-15 difference with the Spartans taking a timeout with 3:34 left to play before intermission.

Then, for the cherry on top, the most veteran of the Mules’ cast, Isaiah Wright, concluded the first half proceedings with a pair of silky-smooth jumpers – the last of which came right at the first half horn – as Solanco was able to head into the recess with the 33-19 lead next to their name.

In the third though, with Garden Spot potentially being able to muster their most significant strides to try and reel in their opposition, Solanco simply refused to negotiate on such a premise.

Case in point, a pair of freebies knocked down at the charity stripe by way of Solanco 6’2 junior big man, Daniel Bailey, making it a comfortable 45-25 Mules’ lead with 3:37 left in the third frame with Bailey well on his way to pacing all players with game-high scoring honors courtesy of tossing in an 18-point night at the office.

Speaking of Bailey, his determined efforts underneath the tin were certainly not in short supply on this night as a whole. Not the least of which came following another tough bunny inside later in the period, with this deuce now awarding the Mules their largest lead of the ballgame at that point, 48-27, before the dust would finally settle on a third quarter of play which saw Solanco all of eight minutes away from officially achieving a 2-1 divisional record courtesy of a 48-29 advantage over Garden Spot.

Inside those last eight minutes, nothing much seemed to change in terms of the game’s overall narrative. Positive news for Solanco’s perspective, no doubt.

Sure enough, behind another pair of Bailey buckets, the Mules saw themselves suddenly flirting with triggering the mercy rule in action somewhat, 59-34, with just 3:30 left to play at that time.

And while Garden Spot 5’11 senior, Welles Harrell, would fire in the last of contest’s fireworks with a 3-ball that made it a 20-point gap once more at 59-39, that same margin would hold firm over the course of the final few minutes as Solanco, while admittedly not having their best stuff working on this night, was still 20 points better than the opposition, on the road no less, as the Mules’ troops were able to board the bus home successful following their 60-40 triumph over Garden Spot on Wednesday night.

“No road games in this section are going to be easy,” Solanco first-year head coach, Scott Gaffey, remarked in the postgame afterwards. “Our guys just battled. We definitely missed a ton of easy shots. Kiran (Ludgate) has been our leading scorer, but he had to battle foul trouble most of the game,” Gaffey continued. “But I do think our other guys stepped up and made those plays.”

“I give Garden Spot credit though. They play super hard, are really scrappy, and they had guys make big shots at big times for them tonight,” the Mules’ head coach added with praise. “We tried to put our foot on the gas there to try and pull away, but (Spot) would make a big shot to come right back in and not let us really get away.”

And on a night where the spark might have needed to come from a different place, the good news for Solanco — on the both the micro and the macro — is that the Mules have quite a few options in which they can turn to when the waters might get somewhat choppy while aboard their ship. Something their new coach is well cognizant of.

“We’re super fortunate,” Gaffey chimed in when asked about the Mules’ sheer depth. “One of the things I know I learned personally during the summer was that we have so many guys that can score and we can be hard a hard group to try and prepare for. We can run a ton of different stuff to try and get different guys looks which is awesome for us. Shoot, I coach our team, and I sometimes don’t even know who it’s going to be on any given night,” Gaffey said with a laugh. “I think we can be a ‘pick your poison’ type of team because we have so many guys that can make those plays when needed.”

Lastly, for a new coach, yes, albeit someone who has laid down roots here in the conference – ironically in the same section as the club he now coaches –, Gaffey knew that tangible results were important right from the jump while leading this crew. Not exactly the easiest of tasks though when you consider just how front-loaded the Mules’ start to the season had appeared to be.

“When the Manheim Central game got postponed and pushed way back like towards the end of the season, we then had to come in and tell our guys that we wouldn’t be playing for another whole week,” Gaffey remarked of Mother Nature kicking the can down the road on the Mules’ eventual season-opener which didn’t finally occur until last Tuesday night with a trip to Cocalico. “Everybody wanted to play that (Manheim Central) game and get rolling. The guys wanted to play. I wanted to play. At that point though, it’s like, ‘I know (not playing) sucks, but it’s another five practices for us to try and get better.’ To our guys’ credit, they bought into that. It was definitely good to get off to a nice start here though because our guys are trying to build that mindset of knowing, ‘We can win.’ I think we got halfway there through the summer and fall and because we all did do really well and we had success there,” Gaffey said of the team’s offseason regime. “But, we also needed to see those results during the regular season too. (The regular season) is just different. I knew coming in to the season that we had a really tough stretch to open up. We didn’t have any easy games, so it’s been really nice to see our guys achieve and enjoy that early success….We’re 3-1 right now and out of our first five games, we’ll have played Cocalico, Warwick, at Lebanon, and now Conestoga Valley in that first bunch. Luckily, we have an experienced team who have started a ton of games with a lot of senior leadership. It was our seniors who made the key plays in the game at Lebanon to win us that game.”

“It’s just been huge to have this start because the guys get to see the fruits of their labor,” Gaffey said in closing. “They’ve put in a ton of time and done a ton of work this offseason to get ready.”

As a result, following this successful first jaunt through the schedule tabulated against stern competition, Solanco is starting to catch everyone’s attention. Well, maybe others perhaps, but certainly not themselves.

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