Lincoln girls dominate East Jessamine 90-35
Published 12:46 pm Thursday, January 26, 2017
LADY PATRIOT Hailee Barnes drives inside for a late-game shot attempt in Lincoln’s 90-35 rout of host East Jessamine. Photo by Nancy Leedy
NICHOLASVILLE — The Lincoln County High School girls’ basketball team works hard at winning and had 12 wins to prove it as the team hit the road to East Jessamine High School Thursday night.
The Lady Patriots may be used to winning, but the game against the Jaguars surprised even them.
That’s because on Thursday, Lincoln posted its biggest win of the season, defeating 12th Region rival East Jessamine 90-35.
Thursday marked only the second time this season that Lincoln has held an opponent to 35 points or less. According to available records (1997-98 season and up) this is only the first time that the Lady Patriots have scored 90 points. The highest known point total going into the game was set on Feb. 14, 2008 when Lincoln beat Burgin 88-44.
Emma King, who led all scorers with 25 points, hit inside seconds into the game to start a 20-0 run and quickly extinguish any East hopes for an upset and the team’s first win.
The win improved Lincoln to 13-5 overall while East continues to search for its first “W,” falling to 0-14.
Jalynn Landversicht, the only Jaguar player averaging double figures (14.3) and the only returning player from last year’s 23-win team, swished the nets for 19 points to lead East. However, only five other players scored for the Jaguars with the next highest scorer – Autumn Harrison – getting just seven points.
“12 (Landversicht) did an excellent job and I thought some of their other kids stepped up and did a good job tonight. I think little No. 21 (Harrison) hit two 3’s,” Lincoln coach Cassandra McWhorter said. “They’re having a tough year. They’re just rebuilding. They’ve got some youth and 12 just can’t do it all every night.”
The Lady Patriots led 25-2 at the end of the first quarter.
A three-point play by Haley Southerland sparked an 11-0 second-quarter run that gave the Lady Patriots their first 30-point lead. Maddy Boyle, who finished with 16 points and three steals, went coast-to-coast off a steal with 3:19 to play in the first half for the 38-8 margin.
Lydia Rice, who came off the bench to score 10 points, knocked down back-to-back buckets at the end of the first half to make it 51-15 and invoke a running clock in the second half.
And Lincoln didn’t let up in the second half, outscoring East 26-8 in the third quarter to post a 77-23 advantage before collecting the 55-point win.
“We took off early and we did what we needed to do. But I thought they (Jaguars) played hard,” McWhorter said. “I am really proud of the girls for keeping focus through the course of the game and trying to really do some things defensively that we wanted to focus on and take care of.”
McWhorter continually rotated her varsity starters and her bench (only 11 in uniform) throughout the game. The only Lady Patriot seeing limited action was Kaitlynn Wilks. The sophomore center who has numerous double-doubles to her credit this season had just four points and two rebounds.
“Wilks’ back is bothering her a little bit and it was a good game to be able to rotate everybody in and give everybody more opportunity for varsity experience,” McWhorter said.
All of the Lady Patriots got into the scorebook except one player, with the bench providing 29 points.
“Hailee Barnes … and she had a good drive,” said McWhorter. “I thought they could have called a foul, but with the lead the refs didn’t call it. I thought she got fouled and could have gone to the line and maybe had that opportunity to get in the score column.”
Lincoln shot 55 percent for the game, going 36-for-65 from the field, 2-for-8 from 3-point range. The Lady Pats were 15-for-20 at the foul line.
East shot just 30 percent, going 11-for-37, 2-for-13 from 3. The Jaguars were 11-for-14 from the line.
Lincoln outrebounded East 30-18, led by Southerland with six boards and Rice, Jenna King and Emma King all with four. Landversicht led East with six rebounds. Jasmine Atkerson and Paige Smith each had four.
at East Jessamine
1 2 3 4 F
Lincoln 25 26 26 13 – 90
East Jess. 2 13 8 12 – 35
LINCOLN (13-5) – Emma King 25, Kaitlynn Wilks 4, Maddy Boyle 16, Jenna King 9, Logan Godbey 6, Haley Southerland 6, Zaria Napier 6, Trinity Shearer 3, Anna Lane 4, Lydia Rice 10.
EAST JESSAMINE (0-14) – Jalynn Landversicht 19, Jessica Hall 3, Jasmine Atkerson 2, Hayden Stinnett 2, Autumn Harrison 7, Detinye Price 2.
