Lincoln advances to 45th District finals with 60-44 win over Garrard
Published 1:27 pm Friday, February 24, 2017
Photo by Nancy Leedy LINCOLN’S Tanner McAninch grabs one of his game-high six rebounds in 45th District Tournament action at Boyle County High School.
DANVILLE — “We get to go home.”
Those were among the first words spoken by Lincoln County boys coach Jeff Jackson Tuesday night after his Patriots punched their ticket to next week’s 12th Region Tournament, which is being hosted by Lincoln.
The Patriots, the district’s No. 1 seed, earned an automatic berth in regionals by defeating No. 4 seed Garrard County 60-44 in the first semifinal round of the 45th District Tournament at Boyle County High School.
“Survive and advance is what it’s all about and that’s what we did,” Jackson said. “We get to go home. We get to play again. That’s a plus at this time of the year.”
Lincoln, which will play the Danville/Boyle County winner for the district title Friday night at 7:45 p.m., trailed only once in the tournament matchup, but the Patriots had a tough time shaking the Golden Lions (9-23). After seeing Lincoln open on a 7-2 run, Garrard came roaring back with a 10-3 scoring surge to go up 12-10. But that would be the Golden Lions’ only lead of the night. The Patriots would use consistent double-digit scoring to put the game away, including a 14-5 closing run.
“I do know that the boys in red laid everything they had for me tonight. We battled a lot of adversity all the way through the season,” Garrard coach Ryan Young said. “… the guys we’ve got in the locker room right now are the guys that we need. They laid it on the line for me, we just didn’t catch some of the breaks tonight. That’s fine. That’s postseason play. I told them at our shoot-around that you had to bring your ‘A’ game tonight. And we brought our ‘A’ effort, but we didn’t bring our ‘A’ game execution-wise and on the offensive end.”
While giving credit to his team for playing hard, Young was obviously disgruntled after the loss, saying he felt Jackson should have put his backups in late in the game when he put his in. However, that wasn’t why Young skipped shaking hands with the Lincoln players after the game, including his own brother, Noah Young.
“The reason I don’t want to shake hands or hug my brother’s team is, as you can tell, I’m very ill right now,” he said. “And I did them a favor by not hugging every single one of them. Do they know that? No. At the time it doesn’t matter. I don’t care what people think about me perspective-wise. I want to see my brother’s team do as well as they possibly can.”
Noah Young, who finished with 12 points, helped get Lincoln off to a strong start by scoring two baskets in the team’s opening 7-2 run. Devin Alcorn, who finished with 16 points, drained a 3-pointer midway through the first quarter for the Patriots’ largest lead of the first, 10-4.
Brice Burkhart, one of three Golden Lions scoring 12 points, answered the Alcorn trey with back-to-back 3’s to tie the game, then Parker Dailey, who also had 12 points, hit inside to put Garrard up 12-10.
Tanner McAninch followed the Garrard run with a bucket in the paint to tie the game before Chase Phillips, who led all scorers with 19 points, got a putback to end the first to put Lincoln on top 14-12.
Braden Sebastian hit inside for the Golden Lions to open the second quarter to tie the game at 14-all. But Phillips chipped in seven of his 19 points in the period as the Patriots pushed their lead to seven. Alcorn broke the tie with a bucket then, after a Phillips’ 3-pointer, Young scored a layup off a steal for the 23-16 margin. Justin Preston, who also had 12 points for Garrard, hit a jumper and Brandon Pingleton went baseline to get the Golden Lions within 25-23, but that was as close as they would get. Lincoln led 27-23 at the half.
The Patriots led by as many as nine points in the third quarter, with Alcorn hitting inside for the 34-25 lead. Lincoln took a 46-39 lead into the fourth quarter after outscoring Garrard 19-16.
A 9-0 scoring spurt to open the fourth quarter finally distanced the Patriots from the Golden Lions. Alcorn had there points in the run and Phillips, McAninch and Young each had two as Lincoln opened up a 55-39 lead en route to the win.
“The kids played really well,” Jackson said. “I thought our defense was really, really good, especially in the second half. We did some good things on that end of the floor. We moved the ball well and had good balance. I thought Noah did a heck of a job running the team. Our man offense was really good. I’m really proud of all our kids. I thought Carlos did a heck of a job in there with (Parker) Dailey. I thought Devin, Chase, Tanner, Blake (Smith), Riley (Bodner) and Nick (Noland) all did good. It was a good team win and we’re glad we are playing Friday night. We are excited.”
For Ryan Young and his Golden Lions, the season has reached its end.
“They’ve got a good team,” Jackson said of Garrard. “Ryan and his staff have done a heck of a job. Their kids came in here tonight and played very, very hard.”
And Young was in a agreement on his team’s effort.
“We played very hard,” he said. “I can’t be more proud of how they played tonight.”
Lincoln had a hot hand in the win, shooting 59 percent from the field. The Patriots were 24-for-41, 4-for-13 from 3-point range. Garrard also shot well, going 18-for-32 for 56 percent. The Golden Lions were 4-for-11 from 3. At the foul line, Lincoln was 8-for-10 and Garrard, 4-for-4.
The Patriots outrebounded the Golden Lions 16-11.
45th District Tournament
at Boyle Co.
Semifinal Round
1 2 3 4 F
Garrard 12 11 16 5 – 44
Lincoln 14 13 19 14- 60
GARRARD (9-23) – Brice Burkhart 12, Justin Preston 12, Brandon Pingleton 2, Garrett Wesley 2, Braden Sebastian 4, Parker Dailey 12.
LINCOLN (22-9) – Devin Alcorn 16, Tanner McAninch 6, Chase Phillips 19, Noah Young 12, Carlos Nunez 5, Nick Noland 2.
