LLCC – 61
Parkland College – 69
The Lincoln Land men's basketball team ended their season at home falling to the Cobras of Parkland College, 69-61.
Parkland came in to the game ranked #7 in the NJCAA and were 11-0 in Region 24 play this year so the Loggers knew they were in for a challenge. Lincoln Land stepped up to the challenge and played a pretty solid game today. The Loggers have had horrible starts out of the gate in most of their recent losses, and they were able to avoid that tonight. Lincoln Land did hold early leads at 8-6 and as late as 9:30 in to the game when they led 14-13. Parkland overcame the small deficit and slowly built up their lead to as many as 11 in the first half. 11 proved to be the most the Loggers trailed by and they went in to the half trailing 40-31.
Out of the half Lincoln Land quickly cut the lead down to 5 and were playing well enough to force a Parkland timeout. Parkland responded with a mini run of their own to go up 51-42 will 11:47 to go in the game. The Loggers had their strongest stretch of the game going on a 12-2 run and a three pointer by sophomore Harold Robertson gave the Loggers a 54-53 lead with 6:46 to play. Unfortunately Lincoln Land was unable to build on that lead as they failed to score on their next two possessions and Parkland was able to take the lead back at 55-54. Parkland on the next two possessions hit a three and then converted on two free throw to push their lead out to 6. Lincoln Land was able to get a few buckets and continued to keep it close, but were unable to get closer than 3 points. A few missed opportunities for LLCC and made free throws by the Cobras pushed the final score to 69-61.
"You never want to say a loss feels good, but the effort and intensity we played with tonight was much better than we have put out the last few losses. I never felt like we were out of the game and we were playing one of the best teams in the country. I have told our guys if they play hard, play together, and play defense that they can compete with anyone and tonight proved that. This helps our confidence immensely moving in to the postseason," Chad Jones stated following the game.
Lincoln Land had 9 players score tonight, all but one Logger who saw action. Freshman D'Aaron Owens and Sophomore Harold Robertson led the way with 12 apiece. Sophomore Alex Portwood added 11 and freshman Trace Gentry chipped in 10. Owens led the team with 6 assists and Robertson pulled in a team high 6 boards.
Lincoln Land ends the regular season at 15-13 and 2-7 in MWAC play. They will play as the 7 seed at the Region 24 tournament hosted by Rend Lake at 6 p.m. Thursday evening.
