Lincoln Land's men's basketball team saw their season come to an end at the hands of Danville Area Community College, 77-65 in the NJCAA Region 24 semifinal.
Lincoln Land made it to the semi-finals after winning their first region game since the 2012 post season. However, the Loggers were 0-2 against the Jaguars of DACC this season. The first meeting was a blowout from the start and the second had Lincoln Land leading late in the second half before giving up that lead late in the contest. With that in mind, Friday afternoon was an unknown going in. Lincoln Land was able to keep pace well with Danville early in the first half and after surviving some physical play even took a 22-19 lead after a Jalen Ashely three pointer. Although Danville never fully ran away with the game until late, the final time the game was tied was not long after when Josh Banks hit a jump shot to get to 10 first half points and tied the game at 24. Lincoln Land found themselves in foul trouble ,but were able to respond to small Danville runs with scores of their own to keep it close eventually going in to the half trailing just 34-32.
To start the second half, the Jaguars got 7 straight points and for the first time that afternoon Lincoln Land had a fairly large hole to try to climb out of falling behind by 9. Lincoln Land did just that, climbing back in, by chipping away over the next 8:00 of play to find themselves eventually down just 1. After trading a couple baskets, DACC put together a quick 6-0 spurt and the Loggers again trailed by a larger number, this time now at 8. A response on the next possession by LLCC put it back to 6, but that was a close as Lincoln Land could muster. DACC made enough plays, getting points on the final 10 possessions of the game, and eventually pulled away to the final of 77-65.
A bulk of the scoring came from three Loggers, Keshaun Harlan ended with 20, Jaylen Lockhart ended with 14 and a team high 7 rebounds, and Joshua Banks closed his Loggers career getting to 12 points.
Lincoln Land finished the season at .500, their best win percentage in 9 seasons and tied for the most wins in the last 8 years.
