Lincoln Land - 70

Illinois Wesleyan JV - 71

The Lincoln Land Loggers dropped a heart breaker 71-70 against the Reserve squad of Illinois Wesleyan. 

Lincoln Land gave up a three pointer on the first possession of the game and then for the rest of the night were in a tough fight that followed a similar pattern for most of the evening. Trailing by a few buckets, a couple early timeouts helped the Loggers settle and get into the flow of the game. LLCC began chipping away at the Titan advantage and scrapped to their first lead of the contest just over 6:00 into the game at 12-11. The lead lasted :10 as Illinois Wesleyan came right down the floor to hit a three. Here things went a bit south for LLCC. Illinois Wesleyan rattled off a 20-7 run over the next 6:00 stretch and Lincoln Land found themselves down a game high 12. Similarly to their previous game this week, Lincoln Land finally found their stride during the final stretch of the half and closed on a 16-4 run to knot it at 35 going in to the break.

Unfortunately for Lincoln Land, the first possession of the second half saw the same thing as the start of the game as a Titan three pointer put the Loggers behind and having to catch up again. The lead began to ebb and flow over the next stretch of play. LLCC would cut the lead to 2, it would grow to 5. Again, the Loggers get it to a 2-point deficit and again Wesleyan pushes it back out, this time to 9. Trailing 50-41, freshmen AJ Tillman Jr. became a spark plug assisting on a bucket, followed by two of his own scores, and then finishing with another assist and the game was tied at 50 with 10:00 to go. 

Lincoln Land looked to finally be over the hump as they took a 1-point lead, but again the lead lasted mere seconds, as the Titans scored on the next possession to snatch the lead right back. Wesleyan was able to put together scores and repeatedly pushed the lead to 7 with a little over 4:00 to play after a 10-2 run in their favor. The Loggers once more found themselves having to play catch up. Similar to earlier times in the game, Lincoln Land responded to tie the game up. Tillman was influential as he once more as he got back to back scores. Those buckets were followed by a three pointer by Nate Moore, and in just over a minute of play the teams were back squared up. 

With just over 1:00 to play, Tillman pulled down a rebound, brought the ball up the floor and came off a Michael Tyler screen to dish the ball back to Tyler for a go ahead bucket. The 70-68 score gave Lincoln Land their third lead of the game. Sadly, identical to the other two Logger leads, this one held for one trip as Wesleyan came down the floor and hit a step back three to take their final 71-70 advantage. Lincoln Land did come back down the floor and get an opportunity that ended wide, but the game was not lost yet. The Titans had the ball with :37 left and leading by just that single point. The Loggers defense held firm as they were able to get the stop they needed, but a slight fumble of the rebound left them with only the chance to sprint up the floor and a last second, guarded three did not get to the basket as the buzzer sounded. 

The Loggers had their most balanced scoring effort of the season. 10 Loggers played, 10 Loggers scores. Tyler became the fifth different leading game scorer in the 6 games this season.  Tyler ended with a team high 14 and a team high 6 rebounds, a total he shared with sophomore Mick Downs. Tillman Jr. ended with 12 points while also dishing out a game high 5 assists and pulling down 3 boards. Camden Nelson and Kendall Lavender ended with 11. This was the first time this season Lincoln Land had four Loggers in double digits. Stephen Braun ended just under that 10 point mark, finishing with 8. 

Lincoln Land drops to 0-6 on the season. There is little time to sulk as the Loggers turn around and host the NJCAA Division 2 #4 ranked Pirates of North Central Missouri College on Saturday at Cass Gymnasium. Tip will be at 3:00 pm.