Warwick Continues Scintillating Pace As Warriors Notch Eighth Win A Row, Take Down Penn-Trafford, Set Sights On Promising Homeward Stretch Following Prior ‘Heart-To-Heart’ Conversations
Written by: Andy Herr on January 10, 2026
There are road games and then there are road games. Like the one that the Penn-Trafford Warriors took part in on Friday. Yeah, almost the very textbook definition of a R-O-A-D-T-R-I-P. Capital letters indeed essential for added emphasis.
As the crow flies (or the jet flies more accurately), the distance between Harrison City, Pennsylvania, the home of Penn-Trafford’s campus, to Lititz, home of the Warwick Warriors, is roughly 215’ish miles. Or, better put, three, almost four hours to travel– one-way.
Rest assured, aside from say the opening round of the state playoffs, seeing a Lancaster-Lebanon League team find itself opposite of one from the esteemed WPIAL – especially during the regular season– is something that quite possibly has never once happened when talking the 50+ years of the L-L League on the whole.
But make no mistake. This wasn’t a charity or fact-finding mission that Penn-Trafford sent forth on early Friday afternoon once they boarded their team charter bus on the suburban outskirts of Pittsburgh before setting sail for Lititz, the 2013 BudgetTravel.com winner of “America’s Coolest Small Town” contest, a distinction perhaps somehow skewed due to the website having allowed multiple, upon multiple entries from any one person per day without any such limitations or guardrails, but that’s a different topic for a different day.
No, for a team coming into this matchup with a 5-6 overall record, including coming up short while also out on the road exactly 24 hours earlier in suffering defeat at the hands of Gateway Thursday night, there was business to tend to as far as Penn-Trafford’s camp had to be concerned.
Yet, the same theme could also be said about those who found themselves on hosting duties Friday night.
Without much in the way of any tangible disagreement, the Warwick Warriors came into this unique nonconference affair against Penn-Trafford looking to end the work week while continuing to play their best basketball any point yet seen during this entire 2025-26 campaign. Remarkably, for a team that has made winning such a habit that it almost feels akin to that of a birthright of late, not much attention has really been put on this Warriors’ squad to date, yes, 10-3 overall record all the same. Then again, perhaps that’s just as much a testament to the program that Warwick has morphed into what is now (somehow) Chris Christensen’s 11th year at the helm.
Specifically, Warwick came into Friday while in the midst of seven-game winning streak, not the least of which included reclaiming their annual holiday tournament title which the Warriors achieved after taking care of the likes of Lancaster Catholic and Dallastown respectively. Even still, for as hot as they rightly have been, some of the reason as to why Warwick may not have been receiving much air time locally stems from the fact that the Warriors do not find themselves reentering L-L League Section Two play next week at the top of the heap, a rare occurrence in terms of recent historical data, as two of those three setbacks at the start of the season came against Solanco and Conestoga Valley, effectively jamming Warwick into a muddied race for second-place before heading into the back-end of league play as this month takes shape.
But that too remains a different story for a different day. Instead, for a team that so hopes to not only gain multiple entries into postseason play when it comes to leagues, districts, and of course the state playoffs, what better litmus test than to test your wears smack-dab in the middle of the season against arguably the most famed conference in all the state outside of arguably the Philly Catholic League, with a rare trip from a WPIAL foe? Thus, enter the Penn-Trafford Warriors.
And while Penn-Trafford might have enjoyed their overnight stay while rooming on the eastern side of the state, the visiting Warriors didn’t get what they hoped for the most, a victory, thanks to these homestanding Warriors.
That being said, while Warwick would start the game out hot, Penn-Trafford wasn’t about to come all this way for nothing.
Yes, while it may have been true that Warwick’s Brody Clausen would knock down a triple on the Warriors’ first offensive possession of the ballgame Friday night to help get things underway, Penn-Trafford would promptly retaliate in kind.
Firstly, by leaning on the post presence found in junior big man, Ethan McDonald, as McDonald’s bucket inside gave P-T their first lead of the game at 5-3, before another bucket inside not long afterwards courtesy of 6’1 senior guard, Peyton Mastro, upped Penn-Trafford’s lead out to a 10-6 count with roughly half of the opening quarter already having been expired.
Despite that, playing with a newfound sense of momentum and all, late first quarter buckets tossed in by way of Warwick’s Austin Clemens helped to not only push the hosts back out in front, but also into the game’s second stanza with that existing lead as well as the Warriors’ 6’3 sophomore forward put the finishing touches on what became a 14-12 Warwick lead after one.
And just like how the first quarter began, so too did the second.
The 3-ball. It’s long been an ace that Warwick has had the ability to pull out its sleeve over the years. With that in mind, seeing the senior duo of Ya’Majesty Washington and the aforementioned Brody Clausen take their respective turns in spraying treys from beyond the arc at the onset of the second frame probably shouldn’t have been all that surprising in hindsight as the pair’s buckets from bonus distance alleviated a bit of a rock fight that had since broken out with Warwick now holding what felt to be a somewhat commanding 20-12 advantage.
But even when Penn-Trafford may have felt as if they had calmed the seas somewhat and roared right back into the fight, Warwick would just as quickly demonstrate as to why they only had an appetite for keeping these visiting Warriors at nothing more than an arm’s length.
Granted, while a Zach Feldman bucket which had preceded a Mastro bucket in transition would get P-T back within four at 20-16 with the action now inside the latter half of the second quarter, a pair of Washington buckets, the last coming off a baseline out-of-bounds play in which the 6’4 senior stud was able to finish through contact, allowed Warwick to then look up and see themselves flirting with a double digit lead, 28-20, with two minutes and change left to go before half.
Ironically, just as he had done in the waning stages of the first quarter, Austin Clemens was on scene yet again to wrap up this period as well.
On the night, the impressive Warwick 10th-grader would conclude the evening at large with bucketing a game-high 21-point performance against Penn-Trafford. And while that would indeed be impressive enough to stand alone on its own merit, it was his plays within the game that proved themselves to truly be momentous.
Case in point, his steal and coast-to-coast layup at the other end that suddenly upped Warwick’s lead out to a 34-20 difference before one final P-T bucket inside the final few seconds of the second quarter put a bow on an opening 16 minutes in which Warwick’s positioning held firm by virtue of a 34-22 cushion in their favor.
By this juncture, while the panic button didn’t exactly need to be pushed by the Penn-Trafford contingent, it was certainly getting to be about that time in the event that the road Warriors wouldn’t be able to offer up some kind of rebuke to this existing Warwick lead. Fortunately for them, Ethan McDonald almost exclusively took control of the game all by his lonesome inside the third frame Friday night.
On the night, Penn-Trafford’s 6’3 junior was a tour de force while operating inside the paint coming away with buckets and rebounds of the like at what felt like countless times consistently throughout the evening. Specifically, McDonald would pilot the Penn-Trafford attack most notably by pouring in a team-high 15-point showing to pace the Warriors’ effort, but it was his peskiness down low that posed problems for Warwick all game long. None more so arguably than when citing McDonald’s personal six-point charge in the initial stages of the third frame that pushed P-T back within reach, 36-30, with 4:20 left in the stanza.
Again though, just when Penn-Trafford likely had desires at reclaiming the lead and perhaps riding back home towards the steel city with a victory in hand, Austin Clemens proved himself to be bit of a speedbump.
This time around, while the Warwick lead that once stood at a two-touchdown difference in the latter stages of the second quarter would be sliced all the way down to just a pair, 36-34, come the three-minute mark of the third, a timely Clemens’ trey proved massive as it not only made it a two-possession Warriors’ lead once more at 39-34, but it effectively allowed Warwick to play with some margin for error inside the final two minutes and change as the hosts began the game’s final act while playing with the benefit of possessing the 41-36 lead.
Even still, Warwick having the larger number up on the board and all, there was no denying that Penn-Trafford was playing with all the momentum possible heading into the final eight minutes.
That narrative certainly didn’t seem to deter or die down once Penn-Trafford junior guard, Nick Ponko, finished off a nice floater in the lane that diced the lead down to a 43-40 difference with still 5:10 left to play and the visiting team starting to roll downhill.
Need a cut-stopper? Look to Austin Clemens to supply the gauze.
As he routinely did, Clemens would come up with yet another critical bucket at a much-desired time to help stop the bleeding for the Warwick contingent. This time, it came via a fearless baseline drive to the cup which immediately followed suit to answer the prior Ponko bucket, generating some more breathing room for the Warriors once again at 45-40 with every possession now worth its weight in gold.
A lead which Warwick would run right to the bank with and cash in during the final closing minutes as fate would have it.
Fittingly, seeing as how they too had helped get things kick-started way back inside the first half of play, the senior tandem of Brody Clausen and Ya’Majesty Washington would offer their own punctuation marks before the night was over with.
For Clausen, it would come from beyond the arc as the Immaculata commit would sink his third and final triple of the evening to make it a 50-43 Warwick with 3:17 left to play, before the other college-bound talent, Washington, would put the finishing touches on his 18-point night at the office with a take to the rack to make it a 53-45 contest with all of 80 seconds remaining by that point.
And while the outcome of this one was all but etched into stone, there was still time for one last Penn-Trafford hurrah when it came to the team’s eastward venture.
Granted, while it would prove to be far too little, and far too late, a successful halfcourt heave sunk at the game’s final buzzer by way of P-T’s Ben Lenart would provide the final bit of scoring done on this night that culminated in Warwick not only prevailing over a hard-charging Penn-Trafford group by nearly going wire-to-wire in the form of what became a 56-49 final victory once the dust had finally settled, but it also more importantly allowed the Warriors, now winners of eight in a row, a bit of well-earned rest and relaxation before a rare January week without much in the way of game competition ahead on their upcoming docket.
Afterwards, considering how this game stuck out like a sore thumb on the schedule between two programs that have almost nothing in common whatsoever with one another, the inside scoop would itself prove vital in learning as to how this Warwick and Penn-Trafford meeting came to be.
“Coach (Doug) Kelly’s son played at York College with Kai (Cipalla) and Tate (Landis), so I got to know him a little bit there. Also, his brother Mark, when I was in college at Shenandoah, was part of the athletic board, and just super involved with athletics in general. Once I graduated college, he pretty much became a really good business mentor for me to lean on, so I guess I can say I’ve known the Kelly family a while now,” Warwick head coach, Chris Christensen, said of the mutual connections shared between himself, his former Warwick playing alums, and the Penn-Trafford head man that helped bridged the perceived massive gap on the map between Harrison City and Lititz.
“I’ve gotten a chance to know Coach (Kelly) from going to York games over the years and just meeting him and getting to talking about how we know so many people in common,” Christensen shared. “It was pretty cool. (Kelly) called me and said they wanted to come out to play. (Penn-Trafford) is going to go to the York College game tomorrow, so it all worked out. It was an opportunity to coach against somebody that runs a good program that I really respect. I thought it was great.”
Not the least of which was due to preparing for a fresh face amid the monotony and collective dog days that come with this time of year in seeing the same old squads.
“It’s refreshing,” Christensen said of the change of pace that came with scouting an opponent from scratch. “I think it simulates the postseason a little bit in terms of what all you can run into,” he continued. “I think everybody in our league and all the coaches in our league do a great job of scouting to the point where everyone kind of knows everything about everybody. Some guys who have been doing this thing for awhile, they’ll have like stacks and stacks of info for ten-plus years on what every team runs and likes to do. It was refreshing just to prepare, find things, trade film with people you don’t really know in Pittsburgh and all that,” he joked. “But yeah. It was fun.”
“There is a reputation. You know that league is strong,” Christensen then said in regard to Penn-Trafford’s home conference, the WPIAL. “It was just a great opportunity for our guys, and I think our guys really enjoyed it,” he added. “I think it was nice from them to play somebody that they don’t know to where they had to get themselves prepared and ready to go.”
That’s something though, regardless of whomever the opponent on the opposite bench has been, that Warwick has been up to the task for now dating back to before Christmas. But don’t forget – things weren’t always so rosy for the Warriors earlier this season.
“If you were here at the beginning of the year, the sky was falling,” Christensen quipped sarcastically when harkening back to his team’s admittedly somewhat pedestrian start at 3-3 out of the chute that came part in parcel with that 0-2 mark in section play in particular. “I think we had some heart-to-heart conversations as a team and individually,” the Warriors’ head man remarked of what perhaps turned the tide internally.
“It’s interesting. We’re at that point now where these guys don’t know anything other than us being at least decently successful,” Christensen highlighted of his current group of players who can only associate the program in which they wear the uniform of as being arguably one of the L-L’s best during their formative years. “That’s all earned. It’s not given,” he added of success. “It’s the expectation, yeah, but you have put in the time and still hold yourself to that level. I think we had to check ourselves a little bit and understand that you need to show up every night and show up right now.”
“I think we’ve grown together,” Christensen said in closing of the team’s growth overall. “We’re still figuring some things out, but I think we’re in a really good spot.”
Hard to argue with that rationale.
Heading into the coming week, Warwick now sits alone amongst all their fellow Section Two brethren when it comes to hitting the double figure plateau with the Warriors now possessing an 11-3 mark, a feat that puts them two clear of the next in line. Inside the section, they now sit cozily inside that next pack behind Conestoga Valley in terms of the top of the pecking order with a host of other schools joining in along with them. But for a program that’s built itself to the level where section champions are darn near the norm, seeing Warwick’s name right there is likely enough to make even the most-hardened of Warriors’ foe feel just the slightest bit squeamish.
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