Kristina Lloyd
Senior forward Kevin Mathews came up big in overtime against Mountain View last Friday.
The Lincoln County High boys basketball team hosted Mountain View in an electric game last
Friday. The game went to double overtime, and to top it out Lincoln came out with the win.
Lincoln Coach Ken Thornock was a little cautious about the Brooks twins for Mountain View. Terrence and Tyrell both score very close to twenty points a game. The rest of the team doesn’t score half as much as they do, and knew if his team could slow the dynamic duo, their team would struggle to put points on the board.
Thornock had confidence in his players that they could stop the twins. The coach said senior guard Cody Thornock especially stepped up defensively. “When Cody was on Terrence Brooks, he didn’t score much at all.’’ But after a while, he got a little harder to contain. At halftime Lincoln had 23 points and Mountain View had 26. Terrence Brooks had 20 of their points.
At halftime, coach told his team to focus on taking good shots and playing lockdown defense.
Lincoln fought hard in the third period and outscored Mountain View by four points.
In the fourth, the game got intense. Both teams giving it everything. In the final twenty seconds of the game Lincoln was down by two. Junior guard Elijah Harr dribbled the ball up the court and pulled from three. Of course it went in and Lincoln was up by one. Everyone thought the game was over, but then the refs whistle blew with no time left. Defensive foul on Lincoln and two shots for Tyrell Brooks. Thornock said, “He had a perfect stroke on the first free throw. I thought he was going to make both, and the game would be over.”
The second shot bounced off the front of the rim.
In overtime, senior forward Kevin Mathews really took over. He had some huge baskets and finished with eleven points in the game with nine rebounds. With Terrence Brooks fouled out of the game Lincoln was able to win the game by ten points.
Lincoln’s next game against Lake Mead was just as exciting, just had a different ending.
The team played a great first half. The players executed their offense well and played hard defense. At halftime Lincoln was up 30-20.
After halftime, the team wasn’t able to get anything going. Coach said, “Their mental approach wasn’t the same.” The boys got relaxed, and it came back to bite them. Lincoln got outscored in the third period by nine points. The final quarter Lincoln only scored ten points and Lake Mead had seventeen. Harr filled up the statsheet. He had 13 points and five rebounds with four assists and two blocks.
Thornock said, “I am proud of the effort of the team. They give me everything when they stepped out on the court.”
Lincoln (5-13 overall, 3-8 league) next plays at home tonight at 6:30 against Calvary Chapel. The team hosts The Meadows tomorrow at 3 p.m.
