Solanco Slows Things Down, Relies On Stingy Zone Defense To Knock Off Lebanon As Improving Golden Mules Find First Win Of The Season To Get ‘Monkey Off Their Back’
Written by: Andy Herr on December 15, 2024
It happens every year. Without fail, there will always be a storyline that emerges from the first few weeks of the high school basketball season come each December. Sure enough, 2024-25 would be no such exception to this virtual rule of law.
By now, it’s been well documented about how the Lebanon Cedars have been itching, clawing, insert any other of the verb of the like in here, to finally crack that win column for the first time in over two years. Finally, once this much-improved version of the Cedars was able to find that tangible bit of success found in their win over Oxford back on the night of December 4th, the first victory in head coach Kris Uffner’s tenure leading one of the most historic brands that the Lancaster-Lebanon League has to offer, the Cedars were everyone’s darling team to fall in love with. And rightfully so.
The problem was, someone forgot to Lebanon that the cutesy story was supposed to cease and desist right there that night in southern Chester County.
After finally tasting that sweet nectar of victory in that game against the Hornets, the Cedars became extremely greedy as a result. So much so in fact that they would promptly follow that lid-lifting victory up by earning the right to call themselves champions in the truest sense of the word, winning their own tip-off tournament title after vanquishing Elizabethtown in the prized fight, a rare occurrence of two teams lining up against each other in a de facto rematch just four days after those very same Bears won the season-opener, yes, against Lebanon, by a 66-56 count.
From there, while the feel-good story admittedly did get doused somewhat by a hot-shooting Warwick crew who tossed in 10 triples to win going away by 26 points in the Cedars’ house earlier this week, Lebanon wasn’t done settling. Instead of sulking in what could’ve been a defeat that sent them spiraling downwards, Uffner’s bunch responded in kind by again checking off another box on the priority list, winning a Section One game, as the Cedars did in knocking off McCaskey on Friday night.
But as in the case with any team still becoming fluent in that crucial lesson of learning how to win in real-time, there will be assignments that will be worth their weight in gold down the line. Chief among them, how do you follow up another landmark achievement in your next outing, albeit one roughly 16 hours later, and albeit one about an hour’s drive away from home to boot?
When you walk into the athletic facility at Solanco High School’s campus outside of the Quarryville town limits, you’re greeted with the graphic designs of the Golden Mule head with the phrase below it, “Never outworked.” Ordinarily, these are hokey little gestures that can be treated as nothing more than a way to create a little bit of extra flair and spice that make things pop visually that come part in parcel with some generic, canned phrase of can-do attitude that looks great when printed on a t shirt, or windows/doors in this case. But this might actually be the lone exception to that rule.
For Solanco head coach and athletic director, Anthony Hall, a basketball-loving native of the Bronx who has found his way via the not often traveled route of New York City into the southern end of Lancaster County, he knows this isn’t going to be some overnight finger-snap that gets rectified without a little –or a lot –of sweat equity. No, there won’t be any transfers in, or some magical 6’4 foreign exchange student, like that of Sarunas Jasikevicius, who did the latter in the mid-90’s before parlaying his Golden Mule playing days into being a Terrapin at Maryland while suiting up for Gary Williams. Instead, he knows full well that getting the Golden Mules to consistently be a team that evolves into a venerable force in holding its own against its fellow L-L Section Two mates is a chore that is quite literally impossible without buy-in and constant investment to the process. A process that will take a potent combination of early mornings and summer months packaged together, times when most would rather be found sleeping or swimming rather than indulging in such strain that comes without virtually any fanfare.
Fortunately, it seems as if Hall’s blueprint –while still in its initial renderings perhaps – is starting to pay dividends.
Granted, while Solanco entered their Saturday matinee at home against Lebanon while still lugging that 0-fer around with them in the win column thus far, you get the feeling that Hall wouldn’t have it any other way. Not the string of L’s of course, but the grind that comes in climbing the hill.
Sure, while everyone would love to have the expressway open up for them without any traffic whatsoever, for a native New Yorker, the honking of car horns still probably makes him feel more at home than hearing a cow moo, or a horse neigh, out in some nearby pasture. That is why, even for a program and a team that one may think may be deep in the basement of their feelings considering how the wins over the years haven’t exactly been by the bushel, you’d never truly know in watching the Mules compete. Truthfully though, it’s hard not to operate any other way when playing for a head coach who will make no qualms with holding you accountable, but will also be the exact same person who will be the first to wrap his arm on your shoulder and let you know that you did well. In retrospect, perhaps the school’s nickname should be changed to the Tigers instead of the Mules considering how they never change their stripes no matter what the circumstance.
Regardless of hypothetical name changes or not, what Saturday afternoon in Quarryville did offer was a chance for either the Lebanon Cedars, fresh off their first divisional win in years, or the Solanco Golden Mules, looking to grab that first victory of the season, to find out a lot about themselves. Yet by the end of this lesson, while the Cedars are obviously on an upward trajectory as demonstrated thus far, so too is Solanco. They just might not do in the flashiest of manners. And that’s okay too.
In the early going, it was evident that this would be a fair fight in this intersectional Section One and Section Two affair.
Sure, while Mules senior guard, Davide Ravenna, would finish off a move at the cup that gave the hosts the early 5-2 lead, a Robert Santiago triple not long afterwards for the Cedars’ effort knotted things up at 5-5 nearly three minutes in. From there, the lead would do nothing it would seem other than change hands. Again, while Lebanon would proceed to go back in front at 10-8 following a 3-ball sunk courtesy of Alec Wolfe, Noah Bailey would retaliate in kind for the Solanco cause as the veteran senior forward splashed home a triple in his own right before the first quarter buzzer, once again seeing the game result in a stalemate given the 13-13 score following the first eight minutes.
Yet if there was one key factor that eventually proved to be the underlying impetus that would be a major crux in deciding the eventual outcome, it was undoubtedly Solanco’s decision to break out the 1-3-1 zone.
While it’s not necessarily a doctoral-level defense to employ, it doesn’t make it any easier when trying to negotiate against if you haven’t seen it, especially at the high school level most of all. For Lebanon, after playing an up-and-down game just a few hours earlier in that of the aforementioned game against McCaskey, the Golden Mules’ rangy zone conversely slowed this game down to a snail’s pace.
Case in point, after scoring 63 against the Red Tornado, the Cedars would now glance up at the scoreboard with 1:40 left to play in the opening half on Saturday and find themselves with only 16 points generated to that point. And that’s not even considering the fact that they were also trailing at the time, 21-16, following a smooth pullup jumper hit in the lane thanks to the handiwork of another member of the Bailey clan, Daniel Bailey, as the promising Solanco freshman forward helped to keep a pep in the step of his fellow troops.
And while Lebanon senior guard, Ben DiScuillo, would do his best to try and shoot the Mules out of their zone by spraying in a triple to slice the Solanco down to a pair at 21-19 with one minute remaining, that same margin would remain set in stone once the first half horn blared out. For once it did, while obviously enthused by their efforts compiled during the first 16 minutes, Hall quite literally had his team follow his lead in making a dead-sprint into the locker room to talk shop and focus on a crucial 16 minutes of play that could prove critical to their season at large.
Needless to say, Lebanon would be forced to figure out how to work against this zone defense being played by the Mules as it likely wasn’t going away given its effectiveness til that point.
Fortunately, it seemed as if the Cedars would indeed find their reprieve in the form of a trifecta knocked down on their opening possession of the second half via their starting freshman talent, Derek Franco, who got in on the act to put the visitors back in front inside the wee moments of the third frame.
However, that would prove later prove to be the final instances of Lebanon playing with the benefit of the lead for the remainder of the contest as fate would have it.
While he may not be the most imposing of figures to be found up top in patrolling a 1-3-1 zone, Solanco’s Isaiah Wright was nonetheless effectively in fulfilling the role. To be sure, the Mules’ junior point guard looked more suited if he would’ve been in a soccer uniform instead of a basketball jersey considering how many kick balls he was generating in spearheading the Solanco zone with the Cedars still largely perplexed. Yet when he did get his hands – rather than his feet — on the pill, his pilfers were equally as devasting to Lebanon’s half court offense, such as the case when Wright stole the ball and raced to the cup with it while finishing through contact, making it a 24-23 Solanco advantage with 3:40 left to play in the third.
From there on out, Solanco only kept the snowball rolling downhill.
Behind a nice mix of inside/outside play, the Mules gradually built upon their cushion. For the outside portion, that would come via a 3-ball sunk by Noah Bailey –on his way to an 11-point day at the office – before arguably the key catalyst in the entire Solanco machine on Saturday afternoon, Kiran Ludgate, finished off a pair of bunnies inside that helped to propel the hosts out to a rather sizable 31-23 lead come the conclusion of the third period.
Suffice to say, whatever got into Ludgate and served as his jet fuel down the stretch against Lebanon, Coach Hall certainly wouldn’t be opposed to seeing that same version of his junior forward show up and show out for the remainder of the campaign.
In fact, while en route to what would be a game-high 12-point scoring effort to lead the Solanco cause, Ludgate proceeded to start the final stanza off with a bang by sinking a 3-ball to push the Mules’ lead out to double figures, the first instance of such on the day. Later, another of the Golden Mules who would finish in double figures, Kali Hines, sunk a fearless trifecta of his own as the sophomore guard would finish his afternoon in posting an 11-point showing as well once the dust had finally settled.
But speaking of Ludgate, he took matters upon himself to help shut the door on any sort of frantic Lebanon bid down the final stretch.
Sure enough, in the aftermath of another deadeye three that preceded a layup at the tin that were both of his doing, Ludgate had helped the Solanco lead swell outward to a 42-26 difference with the Mules starting to sense their first triumphant feeling of the young season perhaps starting to wash over them with only 3:33 left to play.
Yet while the Cedars would eventually trim the gap back down to single digits, such as the case once Manuel Martinez knocked down a 3-ball to cut it to a 45-34 contest with all of 85 seconds remaining, the eventual outcome was all but inevitable by that stage.
And for a team that understandably felt so eager to finally claim a victory, the Golden Mules seemed rather businesslike and matter of fact following their final 48-37 triumph over Lebanon. Then again, when you grind constantly, you don’t exactly need all the extra pomp and circumstance that comes in achieving a desired outcome.
“It’s starting to come together,” a victorious Solanco head coach Anthony Hall offered outside his team’s winning locker room on Saturday afternoon. “First thing is, and I’ve been begging the guys, is to get us someone in double figures other than Noah Bailey,” said Hall after reading the scorebook and seeing three Mules hit 10+ in the scoring ledger, Bailey included, against the Cedars. “We know that everyone thinks that when they come in the gym they say, ‘If we stop Noah Bailey, we’ll be fine.’ Secondly, playing together as a team, having each other’s back, communicating, and it all finally clicked. Now, I told them to enjoy this until 7am on Monday morning. We turn right around and we have a section matchup against E-town. We have to regroup and get ready to play again.”
Admittedly, despite Solanco coming into the day while owning that 0-5 overall mark, while you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see nothing but smiles and jubilation in a Mules’ camp still winless up until that point, there’d be no way of knowing that Solanco was indeed 0-5 based upon the way they competed throughout the entirety of Saturday afternoon.
“The morale has been good because I think they’re starting to believe,” said Hall of the overall mood and vibes of his squad currently. “After we lost to McCaskey, I admit I called the assistant coaches and I said, ‘We might start losing them now,’” he candidly shared following the team’s loss back on December 7th. “But, coming back into the gym, we simply said, ‘We are an 0-3 team, but we are not an 0-3 program. I don’t care what our record says. We’re 0-3. Whatever. We are not an 0-3 program and other coaches know that.’ Other coaches tell me after games, ‘You’re this close. You’re this close,’” Hall remarked with almost no space left for air between his thumb and index finger used to demonstrate visually. “I’ve heard from it all the coaches we’ve started off against. Like (Chris) Christensen at Warwick. I respect the heck outta him to no end. He tells me that if we knock a couple of shots down in the first quarter that it might be a different game,” Hall said referencing a 65-42 Warriors’ win over Solanco on Thursday night in Lititz.
“This is all part of the process of building. We keep harping, ‘We’re building, we’re building, we’re building. Stay together, stay together, stay together.’”
And speaking of building, there’s a reason why they don’t have ribbon-cutting ceremonies when only the scaffolding is up. Why they don’t celebrate the cement-mixers coming in and helping to pour the foundation. That’s why the celebrations only take place once it looks all shiny, spotless, and complete. Sure, while he’s a school administrator by trade serving in his athletic director’s role, Anthony Hall might be just as at home being a construction foreman perhaps.
“No, I like being quiet,” the Mules’ third-year head man said when asked if he was hoping for his club to gain some sort of outside notoriety when it came to knocking off the darlings of the early season as they had just done in beating Lebanon. “If we’re the quiet team this year that every now and then knocks someone off, so be it. That will build us then towards next season…I’ve got to worry about us. I’ve got to worry about our momentum. I’ve got to worry about doing the right things by us,” he added. “Yeah, we won today, but we only scored 48 points. Yeah, we played zone the entire time so you know it’s going to be a slow-down game….But you know what? I’m just excited for our guys. I told (his players) in there, ‘You finally got the monkey off your back.’ They all looked at me like what’s that mean? I said, ‘Okay, you’re finally off the schneid.’ They said, ‘What’s that’s even mean?’ I said, ‘Nevermind. Don’t worry about it,’” Hall remarked with humor of his team’s youthful and blissful ignorance when it came to hearing played-out sports cliches in the aftermath of victory.
“It is what it is,” said Hall of the current state of play a few weeks prior to Christmas for that of his club. “We’re not getting a lot of respect right now and that’s okay. We’re just going to prepare ourselves every day to try and do something like this every day.”
And if they ever need a reminder, all the Golden Mules have to do before pulling the door to enter into the team’s gym for practice or games is to look right in front of them. The signage will tell them the creed to live by. Never be outworked. On Saturday, they weren’t.
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