It's not over until the Solanco girls basketball team says it's over. It wasn't over when Mechanicsburg made four three-pointers in the second quarter to take a 23-14 advantage. It wasn't over when the Wildcats led by seven entering the fourth quarter. And it wasn't over when Mechanicsburg held a nine-point edge with seven minutes left in the game. After the Golden Mules outscored their opponents 30-10 the rest of the way, then, it was over. Solanco completed a 64-53 comeback victory over Mechanicsburg Friday night in a quarterfinals game of the Class 5A District III M&T Bank Basketball Championships. The top-seeded Mules (20-5) move on to the district semifinals where they will host Palmyra (14-10) Tuesday night (February 26) at 7. Palmyra, the 12th seed, defeated Lampeter-Strasburg in the opening round of district before nipping Spring Grove 49-47 Friday night.
Things seemed bleak with seven minutes remaining and Solanco down 43-34. Sophomore center Jade Eshelman and the Mules kept the faith. "I knew we had it," Eshelman said. "I just knew it. I felt everyone was going together. The Black Hole was going. Once we hit a couple shots we kept going and going…We know we can count on each other. Together, we are one at that moment." Jess Cabrera connected on two free throws with 6:58 to go to make it 43-36, her first two points of the game. Eshelman followed her own miss to slice the deficit down to five. After the Wildcats missed the front end of a one-and-one, Eshelman buried two more from the charity stripe. After Mechanicsburg missed a pair from the line, Paige Phillips knocked down a three-pointer. Just like that, the game was tied 43-43 with 5:33 left. "It felt great," said Phillips. "I had a good feeling as soon as it left my hand." Mechanicsburg regained the lead 13 seconds later on a Logan Nutt basket. Solanco forged another deadlock on two free throws by Grace Kreider. The Wildcats' Talia Gilliard hit one of two free throws to put her team back in front. Eshelman, who had eight of her 14 points in the fourth quarter, then scored on a driving layup to give the Mules a 47-46 edge with 4:07. It was Solanco's first lead since the end of the opening quarter. Eshelman, known more for her fearless post play, then stepped outside to hit a 16-foot jumper. "I was feeling it," Eshelman said. "I feel like I don't hit them that much because I need to work on my confidence. Once my confidence is up, I feel like I can get it going." Trailing by three, Mechanicsburg tied the game on a trifecta by Abbey Eagle. Kreider then came up big with consecutive three-pointers to put the Mules ahead for good. Her shot from the left corner with 2:39 left made it 52-49. Kreider had gone three games without making a three-pointer. This time, she needed just 59 seconds to hit another. After Solanco got possession when Jenna Dombach knocked the ball out of bounds off a Mechanicsburg player, and Kreider buried a three-pointer from the left wing to pad Solanco's lead to 55-49 with 1:40 to go. "Grace had been in a slump," McDowell said. "She had been shooting well, but hadn't been getting anything to fall. Every night, I encourage her to keep shooting and tell her, 'it's going to come, it's going to come,' and it came at a great time. I have all the confidence in the world in her. She stepped up when it was clutch time." Dombach added a free throw and an Aleksa Burger basket lengthened the lead to 59-49 with 67 seconds remaining. "We had talked at the fourth quarter timeout about keep persevering, keep working hard, keep believing, keep working together, keep believing in each other, and make a run," said McDowell. "That's what we did. We continued to make runs. we weathered every thing they threw at us." Eshelman collected 10 rebounds to go along with her 14 points. "I think I was just in the moment," said Eshelman. "I feel like when I'm in the moment I can keep going. I felt like that's what was going on with me." Burger recorded a team-high 17 points and added seven rebounds. Phillips provided nine points. Kreider had all eight in the fourth quarter and filled the stat sheet with six rebounds, six steals, and six assists. Mechanicsburg had taken command with a 12-2 run to start the second quarter. The Wildcats made four three-pointers in that span to go ahead 23-14. The visitors led 34-26 with three minutes to go in the half when Phillips connected on consecutive three-pointers. "She hit some big baskets for us," Solanco coach Chad McDowell said. "Paige hit some big shots tonight and Jade hit some big shots for us. They both played great. Two sophomores stepped up in a big game when we needed them to. That's been our motto all season long. Somebody different steps up, whether it be Grace, Jess, Leks. Now it was Paige and Jade. It's been Mackenzie (Gladfelter) at times. It's been Kara (McClune). We're eight strong. It's been Jenna (Dombach). We're just an all around equal team and we play hard every night. And I love it. I just love that they get the opportunity to play together and work hard together. They're just an awesome group of young ladies." Down 39-32 at the break, McDowell determined the Mules needed to shift their strategy. Solanco abandoned its usually reliable zone in at attempt to combat the Wildcats' three-point shooting. It worked. Mechanicburg knocked down three shots from beyond the arc in the second half after six three-pointers before the break. "We went fullcourt man in the second half," said McDowell. "Being down seven at halftime, we talked about it and decided we needed to change something up. We haven't played much man-to-man defense this year. We worked on it every day in practice. We put the time in on it but we haven't played it. As a coaching staff we decided we had to try something different. it took us until the fourth quarter until we really got in sync, found our niche, and pressured them and forced them into turnovers and bad shots. It was a gut decision." As the Mules' defense was improving, the offense finally caught fire in the final seven minutes. "They made runs on us and we came back and made a run of our own," McDowell said. "We felt the momentum shift when Paige hit the buckets. Our crowd got back into it and I can't say enough about our crowd. Our fans, our Black Hole (student section), our pep band, they're our sixth man. They go out there every night, cheer loud for us. It was hard to hear out there, hard to communicate, but I'll take that any night. Our players feed off that and they played hard because of it." Comments are closed.
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