U-High snaps 6-game Railer win
streaking in defeating Lincoln 56-37
[January 17, 2026]
Normal, Ill. – It is a common saying that everything evens
out over time. Some mistakenly refer to this notion as the law of
averages, but the idea is that things have a way of balancing out.
For example, if one has a very good day, this philosophy would
advance the notion that a bad day will happen to even things out.
Or, if a basketball team has a very good game, this notion would say
that the team will eventually have a game in which it struggles as a
way of evening things out.
Unfortunately, for the Railers, they didn’t have to wait long to
experience this phenomenon. Lincoln played its most complete,
well-rounded game of the season Tuesday night in a 64-38 beatdown of
Mahomet-Seymour, On Friday, however, in its next game following that
sterling performance against Mahomet-Seymour, LCHS was on the
business end of a similar type treatment by Normal U-High, as the
Pioneers snapped Lincoln’s six-game winning streak in thrashing the
Railers 56-37.
Head Coach Neil Alexander
“You can’t live on what happened Tuesday night,” said Railer head
coach Neil Alexander. “They’re a good basketball team. I don’t think
our defense worked the way we should. Everything we covered in
practice, they did, and we didn’t execute.
“I think they hit eleven threes, and they were basically wide open
on the line. On our scouting sheet on both the shooters, we said
make them put it on the floor. I don’t think they hit the floor once
by dribbling the ball to shoot it. It was all catch and shoot.”
Unfortunately, for Lincoln, not only did U-High shoot the ball well
from beyond the arc, the Railers did not. The Pioneers hit 52.4
percent (11 of 21) of their three-point attempts while Lincoln made
only three of 13 trey attempts (23.1 percent).
U-High shot better than Lincoln inside the arc as well, hitting nine
of 14 (64.3 percent) on two-point attempts in the game. The Railers
shot 11 for 19 (57.9 percent) on two-pointers.
The 37 points scored by Lincoln is the low-water mark this season
for the Railers in a game they lost, eclipsing the 38 points LCHS
scored in losing to MacArthur at the Collinsville Prairie Farms
Holiday Classic.
“Give them credit; they defended it,” Alexander said. “Hopefully,
maybe we could find them and another chance somewhere down the road
in the state tournament, but we’d have to play a whole lot better
than we did tonight defensively.”
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U-High’s Devin Fitzgerald hit a three-pointer two minutes into the
first period to give U-High the lead, and the Pioneers never trailed
in the game. Lincoln got a basket from Brody Tungate to pull to
within one point, but U-High got two more treys and raced out to a
9-5 lead.
After the Pioneers stretched their lead to seven points on a
three-point play by Cameron Johnson, Lincoln got a three-pointer by
Bryce Vlahovich and a free throw from Tungate to bring the Railers
to within three points at 12-9 after one quarter.
One game after Lincoln succeeded with a goal of winning every
quarter, the Railers suffered that very fate themselves. U-High was
up 25-18 at halftime, led 40-28 after three quarters and coasted to
a final 56-37 score.
Brody Tungate
Lincoln was led by Tungate with 17 points. Karson Komnick added
seven points for the Railers and Preston Short scored six.
U-High was led by Fitzgerald (on five of 10 shooting with all his
field goal attempts coming from beyond the arc) along with Cameron
Johnson, each with 17 points. Owen Kirby added a dozen, also
launching all his attempts from beyond the arc at a four-for-six
clip.
The loss snapped Lincoln’s six-game winning streak and moved the
Railers to 16-4 overall to go with a 5-2 Central State 8 Conference.
The victory was U-High’s sixth straight and moves the Pioneers to
14-4 and 6-2 in league play.
The defeat also kept LCHS head coach Alexander at 994 total career
head coaching victories.
Lincoln is back in action tonight (Sat 1/17) at home taking on
Quincy. The game has an earlier start time, with the JV game tipping
off at 4:30 PM and the varsity action beginning at 6 PM.
[Loyd Kirby]
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