Railers dominate Urbana in sectional play ~ stage set for a Lincoln-Southeast Sectional Championship
- Lincoln leads the entire game and gets the 70-53 win
- Kaden Froebe leads Lincoln with 26 points
- Four Railers score in double figures
- Lincoln (27-4) faces Southeast (29-2) Friday night at 7 p.m. in Springfield

[March 07, 2019] 

The Urbana Tigers were staring into a sea of red inside the Herb Scheffler Gymnasium at Springfield Southeast High School when they took the court to take on the Lincoln Railers Wednesday night.

First quarter

Lincoln was near-perfect in the first quarter, hitting 10-of-11 from the field, as they stormed out to a 25-5 first quarter lead.

Jermaine Hamlin rattled off the first seven points for Lincoln, guiding the Railers to a 7-2 lead.

Dylan Singleton was also quick to the basket scoring a couple early buckets before he and Hamlin made more noise. A lob from Singleton into Hamlin resulted in a monster dunk at the 4:44 mark that put Lincoln in command 13-2.

Railer Nation had Urbana seeing RED all night long!

Kameron Whiteman followed that up with a simple two-point field goal and then a three-pointer that got Railer Nation wound up chanting, "Kam, Kam, Kam!"

Lincoln would extend the lead to 20-3 after Froebe sank two free throws.

Tyreese McWilliams hit a bucket for Urbana at the 1:35 mark, just their second field goal of the game.

Before the quarter came to an end, Whiteman hit another three, from the corner this time. Lincoln's outstanding eight-minute shooting clinic came to a close with the Railers up 25-5 as the Tigers were literally and figuratively seeing red throughout the gym.

Second quarter

The Tigers crawled their way back in the second quarter, with a 5-0 run to start things off.

Lincoln's Will Ewald got down to business in the second quarter and he was the offense for the Railers here. A three and a two from Ewald was all Lincoln put together in the quarter, but no worries as the Railers took a 30-17 lead into the locker room.

Third quarter

Even in the third quarter at the 6:12 mark when Hamlin had to take a seat with three fouls, there were no worries. The rest of the Railers picked things up and between Singleton, Froebe and Whiteman the lead grew to 41-23.

Froebe had a soft touch against the Tigers and even when his stop and pop circled around and around it still managed to drop in good for two points.

Whiteman was feeling it, too, with his own little short jump shot.

And it's great to see Ewald's hot hand back. He sank a three to give Lincoln a 47-31 advantage.

Just before the end of the third quarter, Froebe hit two more free throws and it was Lincoln teaching the Tigers a lesson, 52-33 the lead.

Fourth quarter

Enter Jermaine Hamlin back into the lineup in the fourth quarter and he was quick to score. Whiteman and Froebe kept pouring 'em in, too.

With a 58-40 lead Hamlin drew his fourth foul and had to take a seat again on the bench.

Singleton knocked down a couple free throws to make the score 60-40 and with 4:33 remaining the Railers were in the driver's seat.

Talk about fast and furious and fantastic from the free throw line, it's Froebe. He knocked down 10-of-12 from the line late in the fourth quarter to allow the Railers to ride off in victory lane with a 70-53 win over Urbana.

Kaden Froebe led the Railers with 26 points. The hot-handed lefty was on fire.

The Railers dominated the Tigers in the first game of sectionals.

His buddy Kameron Whiteman was still smoldering as he lit up the scoreboard for 15 points.

Jermaine Hamlin finished with 11 points and a smile.

Dylan Singleton completed the final four in double digits by adding 10 more points to his spectacular offensive season.

Rounding out the scoring was Will Ewald with 8 points and also a great job creating havoc on defense.

The Railers will get a much-anticipated matchup with Southeast on Friday night at 7 p.m. at the Herb Scheffler Gymnasium. At stake is the Sectional Championship and Lincoln knows it will be a battle.

After the Railers win over Urbana, Kaden Froebe and Kameron Whiteman spoke about the game and advancing to the sectional championship with Southeast.

Froebe

"Jermaine came out and scored seven straight points and our confidence just shot thorough the roof," explained Froebe of the fast start. "Kameron started making some threes and we just started flowing and we were playing our game. We can play like that every quarter. It just clicked." As for the highly-anticipated game with former Central State Eight foes, the Southeast Spartans, Froebe continued, "We know we have our hands full obviously with Southeast. We gotta try to control the game and control the tempo. We can't let them get us into a transition game. We just have to slow it down and take care of the ball. We've got great ball handlers. Dylan, Will, Kameron and I, I think we all can handle the ball and that's great. We just have to keep our composure."

Whiteman

Whiteman is eagerly awaiting this matchup, too. "I've been dreaming about this for a while," he said. "Finally to get it on a Friday night only 30 minutes from Lincoln, I think we should have a pretty big atmosphere here. Southeast is really good. We've got to stop their dribble-drive. They have this one sophomore shooter that's pretty good and they've got some big kids so we're gonna have to box out."

Anderson

Not much more can be said. Lincoln played out of their minds against Urbana Wednesday night and like team trainer Missy Anderson noted, "The Railers are playing on another level right now."

She is spot-on. Toss records and rankings aside and let these two teams hit the court to decide who advances from here. It will be a sold-out packed house no doubt and a guaranteed night of fun basketball.

The final state rankings are out and Lincoln is No. 9 and Southeast is No. 3 in the state - in the final Associated Press Class 3A basketball poll.

It will be quite the game on Friday night!

GO RAILERS!

Stats

Lincoln 70

Froebe 26
Whiteman 15
Hamlin 11
Singleton 10
Ewald 8

Urbana 53

Sheen 17
Cross 10
McWilliams 9
Tatum 5
Calhoun 4
Smith 3
Young 3
Hamilton 2

[Teena Lowery]