The Lincoln County High School boys basketball team traveled to Las Vegas to play their top league competitors on Jan. 25-26.
Lincoln was defeated by Calvary Chapel 81-48 on Friday. On Saturday, the boys defeated Meadows, 54-38.
“If you coach in this game long enough, or play in this game long enough, you’re going to have nights like that,” Lincoln coach Sean FitzSimons said of the Calvary game. “Unfortunately, we were on the losing end of a night like that. They hit everything, and we couldn’t shoot.”
Lincoln took the lead in the beginning. Talon Phillips kept the ball in the Lynx possession with his offensive rebounds, but Calvary crept up on the lead. By the end of the first quarter, they had Lincoln by six points.
Lincoln slumped in the second quarter, only scoring four points. They came back from the half scoring just as many as Calvary, but the fourth quarter buried the Lynx. Calvary took the win, 81-48.
“A couple calls didn’t go our way early on, and things just kind of snowballed out of control from there,” FitzSimons said. “However, the kids didn’t quit, and they didn’t give up. Calvary was extremely up for that game; they had five guys in double digits. Sometimes those type of games happen, but it’s better it happened then than in a zone tournament.”
Matt Hafen dropped 15 points for the Lynx. Cody Zile had 11 points. Talon Phillips had eight points and Alex Vincent had seven.
Lincoln turned around to beat The Meadows School the next day.
Coach FitzSimons said, “We talked about bouncing back … after a loss like that, being on the road. We needed that Meadows win to secure a playoff position.”
Just like against Calvary, the Lynx were down six points in the first quarter. This time, however, Lincoln was the one who held Meadows to five points in the second quarter. Meadows had a bit of a comeback in the third quarter, but Lincoln sealed the deal in the fourth with 14 points to Meadows’ four.
Zile scored 19 points, Vincent scored 16 points, and Kelley had 15.
“We challenged the boys to play better defense,” FitzSimons said. “After the first quarter, I thought we really came out and put the clamps on them and did play better overall team defense. Holding them to 38 points was pretty sufficient to just get back on track of how we wanted to play and we wanted to dictate the pace. We did that against Meadows and it worked out.”
Lincoln is 14-7 overall and 8-2 league, putting them in second place in the 2A Southern League.
On Friday, Feb. 1, at 7:30 p.m., the Lynx will play Needles High School (7-11, 5-6) at home. Feb. 2, the boys play Laughlin (4-11, 1-10) at home at 3:30 p.m.
