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“They’re a pretty good basketball team. They’ve got
shooters; they defend; they’ve got a little bit of size,” Lincoln
head coach Neil Alexander said of a tough Lanphier team.
After a tough first half where nothing would fall, and the defense
had a hard time keeping up with Lanphier’s speed and quickness, the
Railers trailed 20-18 at the break, highlighted by a three at the
buzzer by Lanphier’s Karl Madison.
“I think we missed a lot of easy shots that we normally make,” said
coach Alexander of his team’s struggles in the first half, “I thought
our kids had good looks and I thought our execution was good.”
But the Railers found their stride in the second half.
Lincoln broke out of the second half with an 11-2 run to make the
score 29-22, capped by back-to-back threes by seniors Josh Sutton
and Matt Schick.
 The Railers bench was then hit with a technical foul. After Lanphier
made one of the two technical foul free throws, Brandon Farmer was
fouled on a made lay-up off a steal and made the free throw to put
the Railers up 32-23.
“I think it united the kids, although that was not the purpose of
the technical foul,” coach Alexander said of his bench picking up
the technical.
Jacob Harnacke, the hero in last week’s game against Springfield
Southeast, made a three from the corner to put Lincoln up ten,
35-25, going into the final quarter.
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Lincoln held Lanphier to just five points in the
third quarter; and then 11 in the fourth quarter.
“I think our defense found their shooters the second half, which we
didn’t do in the first half,” said coach Alexander of his team’s
overall performance, “I thought our defense was good. We held a
pretty good team to 34 points.”
Lincoln was led by senior Matt Schick with 20 points. Seniors Josh
Sutton and Brandon Farmer had nine each. Sutton grabbed 7 boards as
well.
With under a minute left in the game, coach Alexander removed his
seniors, Schick, Farmer, Sutton, and Peter Welsh from the game and
the crowd showed their appreciation for the seniors with a nice
ovation.
Lincoln will play Tuesday at Streator in the first round of the
regional at 7:45 p.m. against Streator. Lincoln is the top seed in
the regional this year. The Railers go into the post-season
tournament on a 17 game winning streak. They lost two games, both to
13th ranked East St. Louis.
[Seth
Laurence]
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