Lincoln Land Community College - 69
Illinois Central College - 83

Despite holding brief leads in the second half, the Loggers of Lincoln Land fell apart late in the game and lost to the Cougars of Illinois Central College. 83-69. 

The story of the game can be told in a brief three to four minute period in the second half. Lincoln Land had battled back from a double digit second half deficit to bring the score to 64-60 with roughly 6:30 left in the game. 

However, after a time out the Cougars came out and hit back to back threes to push their lead right back to 10. Unfortunately for Lincoln Land the ICC run did not end there. Instead Lincoln Land had to suffer through a 13-0 run and quickly found themselves down 77-60. From that timeout to the end of the game, the Loggers were outscored 19-9. Sadly, Lincoln Land had had similar situations happen towards the end of recent games and have suffered man losses late.

In the first half, Lincoln Land felt in an optimistic position, but was guardedly so. Lincoln Land went into the half trailing 38-35, but felt like they could improve on a lot of things to give themselves a chance in the second half. Although Lincoln Land had done a lot of quality things in the first half, two scorers sophomores Trace Gentry and D'Aaron Owens had all but 5 of the Logger points. Owens had a game high 18 at half, and Gentry had put in 4 threes for 12. However, Lincoln Land went a dismal 2 for 9 from the free throw stripe, three of those misses on the front ends of one-and-ones and had turned the ball over 9 times. 

Gentry put in only 9 in the second half and Owens scored once for 2 points. Luckily, other Loggers picked up the scoring, but the Loggers did turn the ball over 11 times in the second half, 6 of those during their disastrous stretch of 13-0 ICC run. Although rebounding had been a negative for the Loggers in recent games, they were actually able to pull in 2 more rebounds than ICC including 12 offensive rebounds to give themselves second chances. On the flip side ICC did not need to rely as much on rebounding as they shot over 60% in the first half and over 50% in the game. 

When asked his feelings following the loss, head coach Chad Jones said, "We were right where we needed to be and let it slip away. We have had physical and mental lapses late in games at horrible times that we need to clean up if we are going to be victorious in this conference down the stretch. With that being said, we can't give up 40 points a half and expect to win. We do a  lot right, just need to make sure we do those down the stretch." 

Sophomore Trace Gentry ended with a game high 23, including 7 threes. Owens ended with 20 points, 5 rebounds and a team high 4 assists. Freshman Nic Hagel ended in double digits with 10 and a team high 6 boards.

Lincoln Land falls to 11-13 on the season and 0-6 in MWAC play. They return home Wednesday to take on John Wood.