The first time the Solanco girls basketball team defeated Lampeter-Strasburg this season, Mules' coach Chad McDowell referred to it as a "signature win." Last Thursday night's road triumph over the Pioneers was as sizable as John Hancock's autograph on the Declaration of Independence. Solanco took an substantial stride toward a section title with a convincing 44-25 victory over L-S in West Lampeter. "This was a big win for our program," said McDowell. "It's a big win coming here on their home court and beating them. It's a second signature win I guess. I don't know what you'd call it, but it's just absolutely awesome to come here and play the way we played. Everybody contributed. We had 22 girls here and without the JV players cheering and the bench cheering, we don't win the game. They gave us the energy."
The Mules improved to 14-4 overall, 9-2 in league play. L-S fell to 8-2 in the conference. Solanco has two league games left – Tuesday night at Cocalico and Thursday night at home vs. Manheim Central. The Pioneers will play three more league games, including a Tuesday night game opposing undefeated Lancaster Catholic. Advantage, Solanco. The Mules completed a regular-season sweep of their neighboring rivals. Solanco downed visiting L-S 40-31 back on January 8, to snap the Pioneers' 25-game league win streak. The two teams could meet again in the Lancaster-Lebanon League tournament and/or the district playoffs. The second meeting was far different from the first. This one was all Solanco after the first couple minutes. "We had a little bit of nervousness," Mules' guard Aleksa Burger said. "Coming into this game we knew we needed to win." The Mules began the contest by deploying a box-and-one defense with Burger shadowing Lampeter-Strasburg's Emma Gochnauer. Gochnauer, who finished with a team-high 11, scored the game's first four points through no fault of Burger, with one coming in transition and the other on a putback. Shortly thereafter, Solanco switched to the 3-2 zone it has used to stymie almost all of its opponents, including the Pioneers in the first matchup. "Our original thought was we wanted to frustrate Emma," McDowell said. "We did that with Megan (Fisher of Garden Spot, who was held to three points by the Mules). We played a 3-2 zone against them the first time. Actually, I was really expecting (L-S coach) Tony (Fink) to make some changes on that and really adapt to that. We actually put a new offense in that we didn't run because I was expecting him to make adjustments and we didn't have to go to it because we didn't need to. The thought process was let's try to get Emma out of her rhythm. We know that she's their scorer. We know she's their leading player. She's a great athlete. She's a great kid. I felt bad she rolled her ankle there at the end. She's a competitor out there and we wanted to try to frustrate her. We got into her head a little bit. Then they hit a couple buckets and I said let's go back to what we were doing. We went back to the 3-2 zone and it worked. We had good rotations again. We have really focused the last month on defense. We know we've got to keep teams in the 30s to win games and the last [several] games we kept teams in the 30s or lower. At the third quarter timeout, we said they have 19 right now, they don't get 30." They didn't get 30. L-S could not find holes in the Mules' zone and struggled from the outside. "We started in a box-and-one and that wasn't really working that well," said Kreider. "We went back to our 3-2 zone and we were able to rotate fast enough so they were shooting shots but they weren't going in. It kept working so we kept doing it." From his viewpoint on the sideline, L-S settled for shots from a few feet beyond the three-point arc. "If they want to shoot those shots, go ahead," McDowell said. "This is playing into our hands. I'll take that all night." Down 4-0, Jade Eshelman converted a conventional three-point play to put Solanco on the board. After L-S made two free throws, Kreider buried a three-pointer which started a 9-0 spurt and gave the Mules the lead for good. "After the first two minutes, we settled in and got a little more comfortable and we worked as a team. It was all a team effort," Kreider said. "We made great passes and were hitting and outs and boxing out and rebounding. That''s what is going to win a basketball game." A Gochnauer three trimmed the Pioneers' deficit down to 12-9 but Solanco answered with a 10-0 run. Jess Cabrera connected on consecutive three-pointers and baskets by Aleksa Burger and Kreider padded the cushion to 22-9. The Mules never led by less than eight the rest of the way. Up 22-14 early in the third quarter, Kreider hit a three-pointer and Jenna Dombach drove to the rim for a bucket. "After we got into the third quarter and we got a little bit more of a lead we were thinking, 'We can do this'," Kreider said. "It's not as hard as we expected and we came in here and we had fun and it all worked out." The Mules never let up. "Throughout the whole game, everybody went as hard as they could," Burger said. "Everybody gave their all. Definitely, the last couple seconds of the fourth quarter, it was rewarding to see all the hard work we've put in pay off." Solanco ended any doubt in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter. Dombach made a free throw to make it 33-19 with 6:17 remaining and missed the second attenmpt. Burger snagged an offensive rebound, scored while being fouled, and finished off the three-point play, finishing the Pioneers in the process. "It was a complete team effort," Burger said. "Everybody pitched in and contributed. It was awesome." There was a buzz around Solanco about the game "The school was definitely talking it up," Burger said. "The teachers and everybody were talking about how it was a really big game." The Mules rose to the occasion. "It was just an awesome feeling to come in here and win like we did," McDowell said. "We knew we could hold them point-wise in the 30s. Our goal was to give up 32 and we gave up 25. Coming here and winning is a phenomenal feeling. It was an awesome, awesome atmosphere here. I honestly think we had more fans here than they did. We had talked about this being a playoff atmosphere. We knew it was going to be a loud gym. Mentally, we tried to prepare the girls for a loud, raucous gym. A lot of Solanco came down and I appreciate it. Anybody from Solanco, I'm thankful they were here." Kreider paced the Mules with 14 points. Cabrera had 10 and Burger added seven. "Huge confidence booster," said Kreider. "To beat them on our home court was one thing. To come up here to L-S, we had a lot of our fans here, the gym was so loud we couldn't even hear plays being called. To beat them on their own court, it just felt so good." Solanco prevailed 33-21 in the JV game. Piper Graham scored seven points and Ilynd Rapant recorded six. It was a happy homecoming for McDowell Saturday as Solanco went to the Altoona area where he grew up and defeated Hollidaysburg 50-36. Burger led the Mules with 12 points and Cabrera contributed nine. Paige Phillips and Kara McClune each supplied six. Solanco won the JV game 46-26 behind 10 points each from Angela Cylc and Rapant. Comments are closed.
|
Archives
August 2023
Categories
All
|