Lynx win 1st tournament game

[March 16, 2011]  DANVILLE -- Game 6 of the NJCAA Division II Men’s National Basketball Tournament featured NJCAA District 13 champion (No. 3) Lincoln College versus NJCAA District 10 champion Lakeland Community College. The winner advances to play Cecil College.

Lakeland jumped out to an early 8-3 lead. Lincoln retaliated by putting together a 10-0 run to take a 13-8 lead at the 14-minute mark. Lakeland called a timeout to wait for the storm to pass, but Lincoln kept it rolling, extending it to a 17-0 run. Lincoln was able to maintain around a 10-point lead for the next several minutes, mostly due to their outside shooting. They made five 3-point shots in the first 12 minutes of the game.

Lakeland played tough but was unable to finish tough plays at the basket and had costly turnovers. By the four-minute mark, Lakeland made a run of their own by capitalizing on Lincoln turnovers to cut Lincoln’s lead to 31-25. Lakeland did a good job of defending Kiel Turpin, the reigning national tournament MVP, and held him to three points in the first half. However, Lincoln was able to recover and extended their lead back to nine in the closing minute of the half. The Lincoln guards were shooting well and taking advantage of the double teams on Turpin.

The halftime score was Lincoln 36, Lakeland 27.

Lakeland started the second half on a roll and cut the lead to four points, but Turpin converted two tough 3-point plays to help his team regain the momentum. Lincoln took advantage of the momentum swing and converted Lakeland turnovers into a 53-38 lead with 15 minutes remaining in the game. Lakeland called a timeout and put a zone on Lincoln to mix things up.

Unfortunately for Lakeland, Lincoln’s shooters were dialed in and were able to outshoot the zone. Lincoln quickly jumped to a 60-41 lead with 12 minutes to play, forcing another Lakeland timeout.

Lakeland was persistent and didn’t give up fighting, especially Ray Chambers. Chambers had two monster open-court dunks and a couple of other big shots to keep his team within 15 points with five minutes to play. Lakeland put on the full-court pressure and locked things down in their half-court defense as well. However, Lincoln was still able to score enough to keep their healthy lead alive, and Lakeland ran out of time to close the gap.

The final score was Lincoln 94, Lakeland 72.

Scoring leaders:

Lincoln:

• Rahjan Muhammed, 6-foot-1 freshman, 17 points

• Tylon Deal, 5-foot-1 freshman, 16 points

• Tony Frazier, 6-foot-3 freshman, 15 points

• DeMarius Sumrell, 6-foot-1 sophomore, 12 points

Lakeland:

• Ray Chambers, 6-foot-6 sophomore, 26 points

• Alex Sullivan, 5-foot-11 sophomore, 19 points

• Dominique Bettis, 5-foot-11 freshman, 9 points

Game 6 box score

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Online:

Lincoln College men's basketball 

NJCAA tournament

[Text from NJCAA recap]