The Lincoln County’s girls basketball team fell out of a first place tie with Needles (16-5, 8-1) and White Pine (9-2, 8-1) and dropped to third place with their 50-41 loss at White Pine Tuesday night.
However, last week Lincoln coach Lori Cheeney said stepping up of the team defense has really been paying off as they won five of seven since Christmas.
“We kind of stayed still for several weeks, but now I think we are finally heading up. Our aggressive defense has really stepped up, which in turn has sparked more energy on the court overall and allowed the kids to play with more intensity and they have worked a lot harder. It’s paying off.”
And so it did with Hannah Hafen and Easton Tingey scoring 12 points apiece as the Lynx downed the Agassi Stars 57-28 at home last Friday.
Savannah Harr added 10 points for Lincoln County, which led 36-15 at halftime. It was a relatively easy win for the Lady Lynx. Agassi (4-7, 4-4) never scored than nine points in any quarter.
Cheeney said, “Agassi is unskilled, but super aggressive. They run right over the top of you. I was glad to get out of that one with no injuries.”
Team scoring was not available for Agassi. The loss pushed the Stars down into fifth place in the league behind Needles, White Pine, Lincoln and The Meadows with only four playoff spots available.
Lincoln (12-5, 7-2) moved to the top of the league standings for a few days as they had a non-league game with Virgin Valley on Saturday.
At Panaca on Saturday, Hafen scored eight points to lead a balanced attack as the Lynx downed the Virgin Valley Bulldogs 51-32.
Tingey, Kayla Mathews and Kailey Kelley each added seven points for Lincoln County, which led 29-14 at the half.
Briana Todd scored 10 points to lead Virgin Valley.
Cheeney said Virgin Valley was missing their biggest girl (6-4 Sr. Kourtney Metzger). “It seemed that she must be the main player, and if they’re winning, she must be the whole entire offense, because they really struggled and were not very good shooters.”
The Lynx host Lake Mead (2-12, 0-9) and Mountain View (9-10, 3-5) this Friday and Saturday.
