Lincoln Land Community College – 68
Illinois Central College – 76
The Lincoln Land men's basketball team began Mid-West Athletic Conference play and fell to the Cougars of Illinois Central College, 76-68.
Lincoln Land started horribly for the second game in a row and found themselves down 11-0 less than
2:00 in to the game. Coach Chad Jones message all week was that conference games are never over and tonight was an example of that, Lincoln Land chipped away and was able to get their deficit down to as low as 2. ICC was able to make a late first half run and pushed their lead back out and lead at the half 39-32.
Lincoln Land hung around in the second half as well, but again could never get their deficit to disappear. On multiple occasions they got the game to a one possession ballgame, but never got over that hump. With
6:00 to go the Loggers trailed by only 4, but never got that close again. Already straddled with injuries, the Loggers lost a starter to an in-game injury and the high minutes wore on them as they allowed ICC to pull away at the end. The Loggers just could not get the stops they needed or when they forced misses, they were unable to corral the rebound. The final buzzer saw the Loggers on the wrong end of a 76-68 game.
"Conference play is a whole new animal to deal with and our guys flat weren't ready for it at the start of the game. Now, from the first 4-5 minutes on, we settled in, did what we talked about and I felt like we played alright. We had a few balls bounce the wrong way here or there that if they go our way we would be feeling a lot better right now. When all is said and done, we did not make the plays we needed to to win." Jones commented following the game.
Lincoln Land was led in scoring by sophomore D'Aaron Owens who had a game high 21. Owens also had 5 assists and 4 steals. Freshman DJ Dollin had a double-double getting 11 points and grabbing a game high 10 rebounds. Sophomore Jerrid Cosby was the only other Logger in double digits with 11.
Lincoln Land is now 10-8 on the season and 0-1 in MWAC play. They will continue conference play Wednesday at John Wood in Quincy.
