Lincoln too much for the Quincy Blue Devils
Railers improve to 22-2 on the season with the 59-28 win

[February 09, 2020] 

The Lincoln Railers simply schooled the Class 4A Quincy Blue Devils on Saturday night at Roy S. Anderson Gymnasium. It was another night of the running clock in the fourth quarter as Lincoln ran past Quincy 59-28.

Landon Hullinger at the tip off

The game was off to a good start in the first quarter with Kaden Froebe immediately hitting a corner three to open the scoring.

It didn't take long for Dylan Singleton to fight his way through the lane, taking on two Blue Devils, and getting the difficult basket to extend the lead to 5-0.

Shortly thereafter Kameron Whiteman launched a three on Quincy and the 8-0 run to open the game forced the Blue Devils to call a timeout.

Coming out of the timeout, 6'5 sophomore Jeremiah Talton hit a three in front of the Railers bench for the Blue Devils to put them on the board. Talton would quickly score again after a Railer turnover and just like that it was 8-5.

Whiteman's three on the next possession put Lincoln further in the lead, 11-5 the score.

After a Quincy turnover, Froebe made a nice drive to pick up two points in the paint.

Talton answered that with his bucket in the paint and the score was still a close 13-7.

Lincoln rattled off nine straight points in the final two minutes of play in the first quarter thanks to a couple Froebe threes and with the clock winding down, a beautiful Whiteman three. At the end of one it was Lincoln 22 and Quincy's Talton 7.

The second quarter was just as pretty for the Railers. Will Ewald opened that quarter with a three by the Quincy bench and Lincoln's 25-7 lead was pleasing Railer Nation.

Fans cheered even louder after Singleton's little move in the lane that resulted in two points and the 'and one.' Singleton danced his way through the blue sea of players and used an 'up and under' move to get the bucket and pick up the foul. Nice. Real nice.

After Ewald hit another three around the five minute mark, Lincoln was up 31-9.

The Blue Devils finally hit double-digits after a three by 6'3 junior Jack Rupert made the score 31-12.

But it never takes long for the Railers to knock the wind out of the opponent's sails. A steal by Froebe and sweet pass downcourt to Ewald resulted in two and offered just another display of excellent teamwork by the Railers, 33-12 now the score.

Flash forward to the last ten seconds of the first half and here is exactly what happened, cue the Titanic music if you want to and envision it in slow motion: Froebe goes in the lane to toss up a soft jumper, the ball hits the back of the rim and bounces right back into the hands of Froebe for the rebound, he quickly gives it another try and this time the ball hits the rim at a better angle and takes a couple bounces before dropping through the net. Bonus here: Froebe gets fouled on the play and swishes the left-handed free throw.

Next the Blue Devils have just 4.6 seconds on the clock when inbounding the ball. After the inbounding pass reaches one Blue Devils player, Seth Tungate gets a hand on the next pass and deflects it right into the hands of Ewald, after one bounce on the court first.

Ewald wasted no time launching a quick three and it touched nothing but net to give Lincoln a 39-13 lead at halftime. A pretty awesome ending to an already spectacular first half that saw Lincoln shoot 14-for-24 from the field for a total field goal percentage of 58 percent. The Railers were 9-of-13 from the 3-point range for 69 percent. Lincoln was also 2-for-2 from the free throw line thanks to those 'and ones' by Singleton and Froebe.

A really good lesson in basketball taught in the first half by the Railers to the younger Blue Devils, who only put two seniors in the starting lineup. But a reminder, Lincoln only has three seniors on the team: Froebe, Ewald and Whiteman. Three really, really, really good seniors.

Moving into halftime there was no singing or dancing on Neil Alexander Court, but there was something exciting going on. It was eighth grade recognition night for the local basketball players and cheerleaders from Carroll Catholic, Chester East Lincoln, West Lincoln Broadwell and Lincoln Junior High School.

Adding to the excitement was the entertaining group of young men who make up the Lincoln Railer Wrestling Team. The wrestlers won the 2020 Class 2A Regional Championship on Saturday at Jacksonville. This is the first wrestling regional championship since 1984. A nice round of applause greeted all the athletes introduced.

With the gym buzzing with excitement, the third quarter was reached pretty quickly. Ewald picked up right where he left off at the end of the half by connecting for a three and extending the lead to 42-13.

After back-to-back buckets by the Blue Devils, the Railers were back to a teaching lesson. Singleton showed the Blue Devils how to score in the lane and dropped in another floater. Then it was Singleton showing the boys from Quincy how you hustle after a teammate's miss, pull down the rebound and go above everyone else in the lane to score two points. That move was real pretty. Lincoln's lead was 46-17 after that play.

That lead escalated after another three by Whiteman and then another one by Froebe. With 1:39 left in the third quarter, the Railers had their biggest lead at 35 points.

A quick, yet patient Railers squad was in complete control dominating this game 52-17. The third quarter score would end at 53-22 and that only meant one thing: here comes the running clock.

As a few fans made for the exit early in the fourth quarter, the Railers finished scoring by the way of Singleton, Hullinger and Froebe. The running clock ended things quickly and the Railers settled the score at 59-28.

Kaden Froebe led Lincoln with 19 points.
Will Ewald tossed in 14 points.
Kameron Whiteman connected for 12 points.
Finally rounding out the double-digit scoring was Dylan Singleton with 11 points.
Froebe, Ewald and Whiteman each had 4 three-pointers on the night.

Lincoln improves to 22-2 on the season.

In the JV contest Lincoln defeated the Blue Devils 50-29.

Brody Whiteman and Elijah Pollice each led Lincoln with 12 points.

The Railers will host Mount Zion on Tuesday night. The JV will tip-off at 6 p.m. The Varsity will tip-off at 7:30 p.m.


Varsity scoring

Lincoln 59

Froebe 19
Ewald 14
K. Whiteman 12
Singleton 11
Hullinger 3

Quincy 28

Talton 9
J. Rupert 7
B. Rupert 5
Reis 4
Nicholson 3

JV scoring

Lincoln 50

B. Whiteman 12
Pollice 12
Miller 7
Klopp 6
Koehler 5
Graue 3
Bivin 3
Hoffert 2

Quincy 29

Common 10
Taylor 7
Triplett 4
Knaff 3
Gay 2
Johnson 2
Klingele 1

[Teena Lowery]