 Guess it's going to have to wait.Junior Max Cook scored all 13 of
his team-high points in the second half, and the Railers rode almost
60 percent shooting in the second half to pull away from the winless
Senators 52-29 at Roy S. Anderson Gymnasium. The victory improves
the Lincoln mark to 12-3 at the halfway point of the regular season
while boosting their conference record to 4-1. However, if you
thought, by looking at the final score, that this was an easy one,
you would be a tad mistaken.
"These are good kids, but sometimes you have to light a fire
under them," said coach Neil Alexander. "You've got to be ready to
play every night." At halftime, that desire might have been called
into question.
For a team looking for their first win on the season, coach Matt
Reed's squad certainly came with fight. Avery Pearl scored
Springfield's first five points, sandwiched around a Gavin Block
jumper, to take an early 5-2 lead. With the Senators playing a tough
man-to-man defense, Lincoln used their aggressiveness against them,
setting up back-door plays. Unfortunately for the Railers, easy
shots did not equal made shots, as a number of the plays worked
right up until the shot rolled off the rim or took a bad bounce. A
rough count showed at least six missed shots right at the basket in
the first half.
"You can't leave 12 points on the floor like that," Alexander
said.
A 3 from Issiah Nelson put the Senators (0-14, 0-5) up 8-3. A
Will Podbelsek 3 closed the gap to 8-6 as the first quarter came to
a close. Lincoln played a little more inspired in the second quarter
but, as my broadcast partner for the night, Joel Vinson, rightly
evaluated, the Railers seemed flat the entire half. A pair of
Podbelsek free throws and a couple of 3-pointers from Tyler Horchem
pushed Lincoln out to a 15-8 lead. After another 3 from Springfield,
Podbelsek finished the first-half scoring for the Railers as they
went into the half up 17-11.
Halftime must not have been a lot of fun for the Raliers. During
our postgame, coach Alexander was asked if effort was discussed in
any length at halftime. His response -- a smile and that look. You
know, the one where you know the answer and he knows you know the
answer and that's all that needs to be said about it. Simple
explanation: Yes, it was discussed in great detail.
Whatever the message was and whatever the manner it was
delivered, it was certainly received. The Railers blew the game wide
open using a 20-4 run at the start of the second half to go up
37-15. It took only about 90 seconds into the quarter to see Lincoln
was ready to go as Block connected for a top-of-the-key 3 and Edward
Bowlby, scoreless at halftime, hit two 3-pointers. The scoring
continued when Cook, also held out of the scoring column in the
first 16 minutes, hit Lincoln's fourth 3 of the third quarter.
Horchem's third 3 ended the run and the Railers had taken command of
the contest. Lincoln certainly found its shooting eye out of the
locker room, hitting 13 of 22 shots, including 7 of 13 (54 percent)
from 3-point range.
The Railer defense, which coming into the game had been holding
opponents to under 35 points a game over the last five contests, did
the job again on Friday night. Any type of pressure seemed to give
Springfield more problems than it should and forced the Senators
into 21 turnovers, which the Railers were able to convert into 23
points.
[to top of second column] |
After Springfield scored the first four of the fourth, Cook used
two three-point plays, one the old-fashioned variety and one from
long range, to give Lincoln a 45-21 advantage. The Senators were
able to score the game's final six points, but it was their lack of
scoring prior to that that doomed the Senators.
Cook led the way with his 13 points as well as almost getting a
double-double, finishing one shy with nine rebounds. Podbelsek and
Horchem each reached double figures with 10 points, with Podbelsek
adding three assists, team-high honors he shared with Cook. Bowlby
scored eight points, with Block adding six points and five rebounds.
Bobby Dunovsky hit a late 3 and Adam Conrady added a basket.
The Lincoln sophomores continued their excellent play with a
52-35 win in the night's opener.
The Railers have a busy weekend starting on Friday night as
Lanphier comes to town. The Lions may be playing the best ball of
any team in the conference. After winning the Pekin tournament over
the holiday break, Lanphier continued their winning ways with a
63-36 win over Rochester. In other conference action, SHG knocked
off Glenwood 51-49, Jacksonville continued the woes of Taylorville,
getting the 67-45 win, and Southeast fell in overtime to Peoria
Manual 74-68.
The CS8 standings through Friday night are:
|
Jacksonville |
3-0 |
10-3 |
|
LINCOLN |
4-1 |
12-3 |
|
SHG |
3-1 |
10-3 |
|
Southeast |
3-1 |
9-4 |
|
Lanphier |
3-2 |
9-5 |
|
Rochester |
1-2 |
1-8 |
|
Glenwood |
1-3 |
9-5 |
|
Taylorville |
0-3 |
9-4 |
|
Springfield |
0-5 |
0-14 |
___
LINCOLN (52)
MCook 5-11 1-1 13, Podbelsek 3-6 3-4 10, Horchem 3-8 1-1 10,
Bowlby 3-9 0-0 8, Block 2-3 1-2 6, Dunovsky 1-3 0-0 3, Conrady 1-1
0-0 2, Perry 0-0 0-0 0, WCook 0-1 0-0 0, Ebelherr 0-0 0-0 0, Krusz
0-2 0-0 0. Team 18-44 6-8 52. 3-point field goals 10-25 (Horchem
3-8, Bowlby 2-4, MCook 2-6, Block 1-1, Podbelsek 1-3, Dunovsky 1-3).
Rebounds 22. Turnovers 10.
SPRINGFIELD (29)
Pearl 7, Iss.Nelson 7, Jacobs 5, Dorr 3, Balster 2, Stephens 2,
Day 2, Grezschel 1. Team 12-32 1-2 29. 3-point field goals 4-14
(Dorr, Pearl, Nelson, Jacobs). Rebounds 25. Turnovers 21.
Scoring by quarters:
LCHS 6-11-22-13 52
SHS 8-3-6-12 29
[By JEFF BENJAMIN]
Railer-related information:
www.railerbasketball.com
Jeff Benjamin's Railer basketball articles |
