Warwick Puts A Wrap On Regular Season Play As Warriors Lock Down Garden Spot, Get Set To Depart On Potentially Historic Postseason Ride
Written by: Andy Herr on February 5, 2026
(Photos provided by Kirk Neidermyer)
Candidly, this could’ve been a bit of an awkward spot for the Warwick Warriors boys’ basketball team to find themselves on Wednesday night.
First and foremost, they already knew that their league playoff fate had been decided for them – a Saturday date at noon in paying a visit to Lancaster Mennonite. Beyond that, they also knew that they had locked up a spot in the District 3-6A playoffs as well. Essentially, one could argue that this game, their regular season finale on the road against Garden Spot, was nothing more than a chance to not hinder that seed for districts while playing against a Spartans’ squad taking to their home floor for the final time this season playing for the pride on both the front and back of their jerseys.
So yeah, it would’ve been easy to just brush this game off as an exercise without much in the way of tangible gains being accrued. However, when you have bigger aspirations, such as hoisting a trophy or two over the course of the next several weeks, while also jostling between seed lines for districts which can either award you a home game or not, rest assured that there was plenty of things left on their plate as far as these Warriors were concerned in their final tune-up before the postseason begins in earnest this weekend.
In short, this business trip to New Holland was indeed accomplished come the nine o’clock hour Wednesday evening.
That said, particularly in the early going, Garden Spot proved themselves to be a rather ardent foe for Warwick to go up against.
Specifically, that was best evidenced by the lead changing hands over the course of the initial few minutes. For instance, while a put-back by Warwick’s Austin Clemens made it a 6-5 affair in favor of the guests, an Owen Sauder bucket in transition later made it a 10-8 Spartans’ lead with 2:40 left to play in the first.
And while a key Brody Clausen triple with a 1:35 left in the opening frame might’ve been mistaken for the final instance in which Warwick would surrender ownership of the lead the rest of the night once it gave the Warriors an 11-10 advantage, that notion would prove wrong once Sauder, tying for team-high scoring honors alongside fellow senior Sammy Plaza with both chipping in 13 points respectively to pace the Garden Spot cause, canned a 3-ball right before the first quarter buzzer which saw things remain totally undecided throughout the first eight minutes considering the 13-13 stalemate by the end of it.
However, if ever one quarter could determine a game’s eventual fate, it was here. And it was in Warwick’s favor during the second stanza against Garden Spot.
Sure, while a personal Ya’Majesty Washington five-point swing from beyond and inside the arc allowed his team to flirt with the idea of owning a double digit at 22-13 following the exploits of the Warriors’ talented senior, it was their work collectively on the defensive end that was quickly turning into the main storyline all of a sudden.
Well, that, and Connor Meck promptly checking in off the Warwick bench and canning a pair of triples in back-to-back fashion too, as the Warriors’ 6’1 senior added his own six-point flurry which then made it a 32-13 lead.
And not to bury the lede any further here, but had it not been for Brody Torrance 3-ball sunk in the final 10 seconds of the second period, Warwick would have pitched a shutout against their hosts over the entire quarter as the Torrance trey gave the Spartans their first and only points of the frame with Warwick heading into the break while also doubling up Garden Spot, 32-16.
Problem was, Warwick wasn’t about to let up.
Sure enough, after emerging from the locker room after what was legitimately no longer than a 1:30-long halftime message, the Warriors were just as sultry once the second half got underway as well.
For that, look no further than the pair of treys knocked down by Gavin Sturgis and Brody Clausen respectively once the second half began as the Warwick senior tandem helped to drive their team’s lead up even further.
Even still, Garden Spot would have their form of retaliatory actions as well.
Perhaps that was exemplified no better than with Owen Sauder knocking down a smooth pullup jumper just inside the halfway point of the third quarter which clipped the Warriors’ cushion down to a baker’s dozen, 40-27, with Sauder becoming the first player in game to reach double figures personally at that point.
But just when the Spartans may have begun feeling good about potentially writing a nice comeback story, Warwick was there to throw cold water on any of those best laid plans.
In fact, the Warwick lead would later climb back up 19 at 48-29 following a Collin Bernstein take to the cup with 90 seconds left in the period, a bucket by another in the litany of the Warriors’ deep senior class that later propelled their side into the final quarter with the 50-33 lead working in their favor.
In the fourth, while Garden Spot would make one final push, the eventual verdict here had largely since been written into stone.
Specifically, while the Warwick lead would be chipped down to the slimmest it had been in quite some time at 58-47 following a Brody Torrance trey when paired with a Ben Smeltz bucket at the tin with 2:42 remaining, once the Warriors’ starters reentered the contest, the fun and games enjoyed by the Spartans were promptly put to an end.
Truthfully, they would cease immediately following a Brody Clausen trifecta, his third and final of the night which saw the Immaculata commit finish with 11 points in this, his final regular season game ever played at Warwick.
Fittingly though, the newest member of the program’s 1,000-point club who just minted this past week, Ya’Majesty Washington, put the punctuation mark on what would be his team-high 13-point showing against Garden Spot as he and his fellow Warwick seniors had successfully passed their final practice exam as the Warriors were able to head back to Lititz and out of New Holland following a 65-53 victory over Garden Spot which put a wrap on their 2025-26 regular season journey.
With it, well, this is where the fun truly begins. For this Warwick team, one that has only been bested once since December 15th (by just four points) in what essentially amounted to the Section Two championship game at home on January 20th against Conestoga Valley, these Warriors appear to be hitting their stride at just the right time. We certainly know from recent years that they have the ability to make the league championship game. Now, the question becomes as to whether this can be the crew that does something not seen since 1988 – bringing home the league crown. This year, with a field of entrants which makes the Warriors’ cause for finishing on top as just and appropriate as ever, perhaps this is the year they can defeat the ghosts of recent past. As they showed on Wednesday night, they’ve done the necessary prep work heading in. They just hope the postseason results – no matter which bracket it happens to come within — can mirror what they’ve rattled off since mid-December onward.
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