Lancers win again, clinch state berth

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent sports

BOWLING GREEN — Quickness outdid strength.

Those were words uttered by Colonel Crawford head coach Dave Sheldon after his defending Division VI regional champion Eagles lost to Lincolnview 58-45 in the regional finals at Bowling Green State University Saturday night.

“Defensively their quickness really hurt us and the Evans kid (Gavin Evans) was just a blur at the high post for them and Max Hammons was really outstanding as well. That’s a good basketball team.”

“We’re 27 games into the season and that’s been our mentality all year long,” Lincolnview head coach Brett Hammons said. “We’re not the biggest team out there – one of our strongest kids is 6-foot, one of our taller, skinnier kids is 6-2 and we don’t have much height after them but we do have speed and that’s what we preach to our kids – we just want to run. We run a lot in practice, we get up and down and I thought we were better conditioned.”

“We wanted to run as much as possible because they don’t go as deep as us and credit our guys – we had guys on our bench step up and give us huge minutes when we needed them.”

While winning the fourth regional championship in school history (1996, 1997, 2016), Lincolnview kept Colonel Crawford off-balance all night. In the first quarter, the Lancers raced up and down the court and refused to allow the Eagles to get into their half-court game. Zander Coil came off the bench and scored eight of his 10 points and Evans added four points to put the Lancers ahead.

In the second quarter, Hammons and Evans accounted for all 13 of Lincolnview’s points and the Lancers led 27-18 at the break.

“They attacked the rim all night long and that hurt us,” Sheldon said. “They are fiesty and they play hard.”

Marshall Hammons, who was tagged with two early fouls, opened the scoring in the third quarter then Chayse Overholt dropped in a trey from the right wing that extended Lincolnview’s lead to 32-18 and prompted a Colonel Crawford time out. The Lancers (22-5) seemingly had an answer every time the Eagles scored and Lincolnview led 41-29 at the end of the third quarter. However, Lincolnview suffered a big blow with 10.1 seconds left in the period when Coil went down after a collision in the lane. Hammons later said Coil suffered a broken collarbone, ending his season.

Evans scored eight of his game high 19 points in the fourth quarter, including a 6-for-6 display from the foul line. Evans converted 9-of-10 free throws in the game and battled 6-5 senior Payne DeGray all night.

“I loved it – it was fun and I knew it was going to be a challenge just the last game with Will (Sheets),” Evans said.

The Lancers were 20-of-41 shooting and 15-of-18 from the foul line, compared to 19-of-45 and 4-of-8 by Colonel Crawford (23-3). Lincolnview won the rebounding battle 28-23.

The Lancers will face No. 1 Marion Local (26-1) in the state semifinals at 8 p.m. Friday at Wright State University. The Flyers defeated No. 2 Tri-Village 57-43 Saturday night. 

Box score

Lincolnview      14  13  14  17 – 58

Col. Crawford    8  10   11 16 – 45

Lincolnview: Max Hammons 5-6-16; Gavin Evans 5-9-19; Chayse Overholt 1-0-3; Marshall Hammons 4-0-8; Zander Coil 4-1-10; Jackson Ingledue 1-0-3

Col. Crawford: Parker Weithman 2-0-6; John DeGray 3-2-8; Brayden Holt 7-0-14; Payne DeGray 7-0-14; Tyler Lash 1-0-2